Look at the Stars
by Augestine
Summary: Remake of a story I wrote called Cannon Ball;Sora is the son of a famous violinest, cansitertered to be a musical protégée on the cello but has to quit after being injured in a car accident that kills his father. He gets offered a spot in a music institution to recover but what will he find when the healing is done? SoRoku Axel/Roxas, Riku/Sora
1. Prelude

_**((Songs mentioned in order;**_  
_**I could have danced all night-My fair lady**_  
_**Un bel di vedremo- Mdm butterfly**_  
_**Nocturne Op.9 No.2-Chopin**_  
_**Gavotte- Gossec Suzuki))**_

_**A Prelude;**_

Mozart was crazy.

Everyone and anyone who had ever read about him, heard about him, or has seen the movie Amadeus can clearly see that this cackling masochist was one seriously cracked fruit loop. But his insanity had always been part of his appeal. Dukes and Duchesses and Princes and Emperors would send for him, travel from all part of the world just to catch a glimpse or hear a single note comprised by this awe-inspiring child that could make the world of music his own. But Mozart wasn't always appreciated for the passion that he poured into his work. While in Italy it was said that his music simply held too many notes for one to hear and comprehend. His choice of opera was forbidden and he was condemned for it. He raised hell for the sake of his life, his wife, and his art. But no one understood the astounding achievements of this utterly brilliant mad man until after he died. It wasn't until he died penniless and alone, and dropped carelessly in the dirt that people began to understand the significance of his loss…

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was flat fucking crazy.

But his music wasn't.

The music that ran ramped through this man's brain and, in the end, drove him into the state of insanity and obsessive depression that ended his life was nothing less than perfection. Each note placed was a necessity that without it you could not move the piece. Each dip and pull, the strain and ease at which a single voice steals the audience or a mass of strings takes the crowd ties a knot around you heart and forces you to feel the overwhelming sensation of being….infinite… and see what the world truly was to this man.

For this was a man that could live in music. This was a man that could hear the flow of life that each foot stepped to beat to the never ending lyrics of the outspoken. But not everyone can hear this masterpiece of the human soul. It only comes to people who were born to listen… Mozart was one of them.

So was I.

Ever since I was old enough to toddle, I've been obsessed with sounds. The squeak of rusty windows creaking shut, the constant drip of the leaky faucet that my father could never fix permanently, the sliding roll of my stroller on the side walk as I was walked through the park, and the tiny pitter of puppy paws as Pluto scampered behind. Every one of these sounds was something new and exciting to my developing mind and I never stopped craving more. But nothing could compare to the loveliness of my mother's voice. Anything that she would sing from something as simple as _I could have danced all night_ to _Un bel di vedremo_. Anything that she put to a tune was nothing less than beautiful, a liquid sound that ran through my mind and out my eyes as the door slammed out any proof I had of her existence.

My father never told me what happened or why she left but he did play a song that cried out for her with arms that would never each far enough. His fingers stretched painful distances and ways to force the song from his heart and it made me understand at the young age of five that he had gone through something so unimaginably painful that he could not put his heart ache into words. But the melody that pierced our broken home wasn't enough to soak up the liquor in this breath or the bruises that formed on my arms and back. It didn't bring back the memories of the things that he had done in the morning and because of it I couldn't think anything clearly wrong with it. Music makes people mad. I knew it then and I know it now, anyone with the drive and feel for it is pushed forward by some sort of insanity. How could I blame him for something I knew I was also pledged with?

But he had the escape that I didn't get to have, his safe haven that he held inside of his violin that I couldn't completely understand. "Why do you look different when you play?" I finally gathered the courage to ask him when he was tucking me in, careful not to look at the purple bits of skin.

He chuckled, a small smile on his lips that made me think of the father that I knew when my mom was here to make him better. And then he answered, "Because when I play, I'm happy." He told me in what he probably thought was a very easy to understand manner, but that's because he didn't realize how much this had been tormenting me. He couldn't understand how badly I needed to know how he was able to change so quickly from this man who lived in beauty to the one who buried himself in pain. He didn't see that same pain in my eyes…

"I wish I was happy." I whispered and his face turned once again into the wall of hurt that held back his goodness. I cannot pretend to know what it is like to hear your eight-year-old child tell you that they are not happy, but I do know that it didn't feel good. But it must have had some kind of effect on him because the next day my father took me to a music store.

To me it was like we had walked straight into heaven.

The walls were lined with wooden guitars, painted in odd colors, the face on the end of each long neck just slightly beautiful in a different kind of way that made them unique and special. There had to be a thousand violins, none of them looking the same either, there were cellos and stand up basses that were made for giants. Three trumpets were lined up on the counter, the scent of fresh polish stinging my nose in a way that made me smile. It all felt so wonderful and alive that I could almost hear the symphony of their invisible voices echoing off of the white walls that they lined, begging to be taken into intricate hands that used to sing to the world that was so lack of voices.

But only one voice filled the shop.

A man with spiky blond hair sat on a platform at the end of the shop playing a song I had heard once before only on something different, deeper than the piano that his hands ran so fluidly over. I wanted him to play forever. The way in which his hands fell over the keys fascinated me and I found myself stepping up onto the platform and watching him play. He chuckled at my intensity and stopped, ruffling my hair and making me look up into graying eyes. "You like the classics buddy?" he asked me with the kind of smile that you can help but return. My father gave a laugh and the man looked up at him with a bigger grin, "I guess I should have known with a father like that." He shook his head with a sigh.

I don't remember what they talked about after that, I was too lost in my own world to care about what was going on. They walked away leaving me with the piano, so I climbed up onto the stool, little fingers running over the ivory wandering what he did to make it work. I pressed down, and jumped at the sound, nearly falling to the ground, but I managed to stay up. I pressed again. And then again. And then again and before I knew what was happening, I was playing the song I had just heard the man playing, laughing at how wonderful it all way. My hands were singing and my feet were swaying, too small to reach the ground. I was making music…

But then I stopped.

There had been a gasp to my left and a little boy with big glasses and bowl cut chair the same honey blond that the man had was staring at me with big eyes. And I couldn't help but smile at him. He had heard what I'd done. He had heard my music, so surely he must understand what this meant! He probably just thought I was a freak, but at that moment, he returned my smile and came to sit with me on the stool pressing a few keys. "Play this." He said as he played a choppy melody that I couldn't really understand. But I repeated it faster. I looked at him waiting but he didn't do anything else, he just looked at me with big eyes and I couldn't help but wonder if I had hurt his feelings by doing something wrong, but that's when we heard laughter.

"Ah! There you are Roxas!" the man came rushing over and picked up the boy, kissing his cheek, making him grin, "Roxas," he said happily looking at me, "This is Sora, he is very special." He said looking at his son, "Now, Mr. Valentine," he looked back at my father, "Is going away for a few days and Sora is going to stay with us okay? I need you to be very nice to him."

"Daddy, He's beautiful." He whispered more loudly than he meant to but I didn't really care. He was wrong, but I was taught that it was nice to accept complements. "He's different."

"Different people are the most wonderful kind." He reminded him and that was the end of that.

My father always took credit for discovering my musical talent and being the main inspiration that made me keep going, but that was just for the audience. If anyone had ever asked me who made me want to play the cello, I would point them to Mr. Strife. He wasn't a famous man, or a wealthy man, or any kind successful when it came to his art. Mr. Strife was just a teacher. A man who lived contently on a small salary and a lot of love from his wife Tifa and his son who I believed to be a little off. He was happy… And I obsessed over how he could be.

My father had left me with the Strife's while he went on a month long tour for the sole reason that he wanted me to play the piano. He wanted to turn me into something that he could profit from, something that could make him proud and pull him out of the sadness he felt without his violin. After all I was the one who went spouting all of that longing for an outlet to happiness and what better what better way than through this monstrous instrument? But I couldn't do it. The piano was nothing but at board covered in keys that any fool could play with the right teacher. They wouldn't be able to play it like Cloud, it a way that would make you feel but they could play it with the skill of a master and get the same response. There was just something about the piano that I couldn't help but despise. Its simplicity was at that top of the list. The keys never able to surprise you unless you were clumsy enough to hit the wrong one. I never hit a single thing out of place. Everything was utterly and completely precise and perfect because that's how it had to be. My father never made mistakes; my mother had always been perfect; so I had to be perfect. The first time we had even sat down at the piano and he opened his book of music and I made a master piece of Chopin's Nocturne, not a single thing over looked, all dynamics followed. But I just looked at him, upset and angry by the astonishment on his face.

"It's wrong…" I told him shaking my head and sliding off the bench, but he caught my arm and turned me back to him in astonishment.

"W-wrong?" He breathed unable to understand how that could possibly disappoint anybody, but I could only tell him what I thought in a way that I saw it alone. "Sora, that was beautiful… p-perfection!"

"Then why am I still sad?"

There must have been something there in my bright, child eyes because any amazement that he might have held on his face was now nothing but a ghost of a smile as he realized it wasn't about being good for me… It was about filling me with something right. Something that was mine and could take place of all the pain that my mother left me to deal with now that my dad had me on his own. The piano wasn't mine… it was what my father wanted me to be and the thought of being anything he wanted made me sick to my stomach.

He didn't make me play the piano anymore, but it was always playing somewhere in the back of the house, filling every room with the light that pooled out of Mr. Strife's heart with each bang or soft press of the keys at his leaguer. To play this instrument with anything other than his thoughtless perfection would have been wrong…and I think after thinking over what I had said to him, he began to understand that being a genius means nothing if you can't feel what you are playing. That's when the hunt officially began.

The brought in instrument after instrument, day after day finding that I could play each with an ease that yanked and prodded at the hollowness in my chest that had me craving something that could challenge me. Something that I could work for the way I would watch Roxas play his violin… He fascinated me… The day his fingers would hesitate in an unsure, off-tempo attempt to play to utter perfection with a lack of any natural talent or good since of pitch. And despite the fact that he stumbled and was nothing bust frustrated with the instrument at his disposal, the fact that he was consumed by it had me listening for hours.

"I'm not very good…not like you anyway…" He said in a pouty down trodden voice one afternoon when he caught me spying on him from the top of the bunk bed. I know that he usually saw me when I tried to sneak in but he'd never acknowledged it before…I was a little caught off guard. And also confused. I climbed down the little ladder, stumbling just slightly as I made my way to the floor before I was really able to look at him, his rounded face in full pout mode as he looked at me with jealous longing that I couldn't bear.

"I'm not good." I told him simply because that's just how young boys think, in simple terms that can justify the world. "You will be so much better than me." But that just set him off.

"I'm not a dummy Sora!" He glared at him thrusting the instrument into my hands before he jumped up and pushed me over to the music stand he'd been at moments before. "You do it! Play the song." He told me, face flushed and frustrated as he waited for what we both knew was coming. And even though I didn't want to, I couldn't think of any other way to tell him what he needed to understand. So I played the song, the small starting melody of _Gavotte_. It wasn't a difficult song, in fact it has to be one of the simplest and most know melodies of the classical music world. I played it for him, looking at him at moments when I got my bearings unable to understand the baffled look on his face as he listened to this garbage I had so easily polluted the air with.

I couldn't bring myself to finish.

"Hey, why did you-"he began but I cut him off.

"How did that make you feel?" I asked him, longing to understand his reaction but he seemed almost as confused as I did.

He looked at me a moment and then at the instrument in my hands before answering, "Sad…but happy too?" And that could only make me frown deeper.

"I don't feel anything…" I told him with a sigh handing it back to him before leaving the room with the door shut behind me.

I didn't watch Roxas anymore after that, I couldn't let myself watch him, the small crease on his forehead that he got when his fingers got clumsy was almost as painful as the smile when he got it right. I couldn't handle that kind of completeness. I couldn't understand it.

I spent my last week with the Strife's watching Cloud. The way that his hands could glide so easily up the white keys of his vintage upright only to fall heavily on the black, causing an argument between his fingers. An argument… The thought of that brought me to the conversation I had overheard the week previous between him and my father. "No, Vincent you don't understand, the child is brilliant! Absolutely amazing. Anything he picks up he can….no, it's not exactly a problem but… He doesn't seem to take to it like you wanted him to. He seems, well he seems sad-" He halted, mouth open slightly as he took whatever was being spat at him from the other end, "All I'm saying is that I'm concerned-" Another pause,"… No… he isn't my child but-"

That was when I left.

As I watched Mr. Strife's clever hands, playing the keys, or winding up all sorts of strings it was easy for me to pretend that I was Clouds child. That maybe, if I was really good then I wouldn't have to leave when my father came home. Finding my instrument became an eternal race. If I could find it, then maybe I could stay, I could smile like Roxas and be part of this loving and complete family. I could do it. I could make myself do this for a life time of happiness.

Only I couldn't really. I had tried almost everything that He'd had in the shop from the drums to the triangle I was just about tapped out. "Let's leave it here for today," Cloud pat my back with a sigh after we found the trumpet to bring all the normal success but the same unhappy haze, "Just put it back over there okay?" he smiled at me as he pointed to the counter but I could tell that he was hurting as much as I was. It felt like I was walking a path of shame as I made my way down the row of strings and set my latest failure aside. I tried to glare at the trumpet but all I could do was sigh as I turned away walking back to the back rooms to see if I could spy on Roxas one last time when it tripped me. It may be a little cliché to say that I never saw it coming or that it knocked me off my feet but that's exactly what happened. On my way to the back, my foot got locked on the stem of a small mahogany cello, causing me to trip almost retaining my balance until the cello came tumbling after me crushing me to the ground efficiently taking my breath away. I struggled to sit up, pushing the enormous thing off of me with a huff as I glared at the damn thing. _Big ugly beast_. That's what I thought of it, and I would have given it a goof kick if my toe hardly brushed one of the strings giving out a wonderful deep sound.

The sound took me slightly aback as my lips parted, almost as if I was trying to breath in the essence of this strange bodied instrument that quite literally fell into my lap. There was just something about it, something that made my small heart race as I stood up and set it to its rights and reached back to the display to find a bow. I took a quick look around the store to see it was almost completely empty, just the few stragglers waiting for rides after lessons. Slowly almost as if I were under water I moved the bow up to the strings. I moved my left hand into a chord arrangement and let my right move the bow…

Producing the most horrible sound I'd ever heard.

It was the most beautiful thing in the world!

I remember running after that. I was running through the store with a smile so wide that it felt like my face might split in half, but I didn't care. Because now I could fix it! With music I could be this happy all the time, just like my dad. I could play music and my mom would hear me and we could be a family again! I was so foolishly happy that I didn't realize people were yelling until I ran straight into my father's back.

He looked angry… and even with his face so far away I could smell the poison on his breath. Mr. Strife looked from me to him over and over as the happiness slipped away from me. I was too late… And now I had to go home and face this challenge without Mr. Strife there to help me. "There you are!" my father slurred as he bent down and kissed me right on the mouth in the most uncomfortable possibly that was reflected in the disgust on Mr. Strife's face. I didn't bother making a face, this happened all too often. "My little Blue." He laughed before he hiccupped stumbling slightly before he collapsed into Cloud's arms.

Roxas came out to watch as his father helped mine into the car that was waiting outside, holding onto the small pack that I had some with. There was a look on his face that I didn't quite understand but I had been too distracted to take much notice. As soon as we got him strapped in and my things placed in the back, I turned around to say good bye to the family that tried so hard to teach me only to be met by a large black case… I knew what was inside of it. "I told you not to leave anything out," Cloud managed a small smile at me but it didn't reach his eyes. He tucked it away and gave me a quick hug before he settled me into the car next to my sleeping father, leaning into the window to say one last amen. "Sora, I want you to promise me something." He said very softly making my eyes widen as I waited, "I want you to take all of that pain, all the desire that you have in here," he pointed to where my heart was in my chest, "And put it here." He gripped my hands and smiled genuinely this time, "You are so gifted little blue. Don't ever forget that."

And just as quickly as they had come into my life, the Strife's were gone.

I spent the next year doing nothing but music. The cello turned out to be exactly what I needed even if I hated every fiber of its being. It was impossible, nothing like the violin with his delicate handling and small movements. Nothing like the piano with his passionate pleas. No, this instrument was completely raw, brash and brutal… And so completely infuriating! I spent hours trying to get my fingers to bend in ways that made them feel as if they were breaking, running scales and perfecting the tones and tools until finally one day I looked up from the piece, _Gavotte _signed in crayon by the little boy in big glasses, completely satisfied.

It wasn't long after that, that my father started bringing me to galas, having me play for friends and directors, everyone wanting a piece of the nine year old progeny son of the famous Vincent Valentine. He dragged me along on his coat tails, getting me to play huge concerts and in quartets, everywhere! People wanted to play with me… and for the most part… I was happy. For the most part, the music kept me at some sort of peace with myself, but it just wasn't enough. My mother never came back. Mr. Strife moved away before I could show him what he helped me do, taking my only friend with him, leaving me with my father to be the perfect child he always wanted. "You are beautiful," he whispered in my ear as he reached around me to straighten my tie before I walked out on stage haunted by his words. It felt like something was missing, something important that I should defiantly understand but when I think of it now I can't. All I can remember is the wonderful crashing sound of applause as people poured what I made them feel back into me and how I wanted nothing more than to play music for the rest of my life.

My name is Sora Valentine. I am seventeen years old and I was…I _am_… a cellist.

I…I don't know how to be anything else!


	2. Every Teardrop is a Waterfall

_((Every teardrop is a waterfall- __**Coldplay**__  
the version that inspired this chapter is by __**Boyce Avenue**__. Youtube can be your best friend~ Enjoy!))_

When I find myself thinking about him, I like to picture him -God- as a large or bigger man who sits for a living in a huge white arm chair made of the fluffiest clouds that you can imagine.

It's his job to stare all day at the face of a million television sets, of different sizes and assortments, and click away at the lives of millions with his mighty and all powerful universal remote. That's Gods deal. He's a repair man and people just happen to be his specialty. With his magic buttons he takes the blur of our static filled lives and fixes it so that we are on the right station. That's what the bad things are. Static. A fuzzy mess of white noise that keeps us from making logical decisions. Usually something as simple as a green line on your screen can be fixed by your guardian angel pointing their wings in a different direction, or maybe standing on one leg. But sometimes it's not as simple. That's why we are separated into sides. The "good" people, the ones that don't need to be watched as closely are put off to the right side, the easy side; where we can go about our life easily with just an occasional adjustment until our screens click off and are replaced by a newer, better life. Naturally, God spends most of his time on the left side. The "bad" people. People that need him to find out what they have the potential to be; people that needed guidance and protection, people that needs the the buttons of a remote to get them going. People who needed to learn how to be happy.

That's why bad things sometimes happen to good people.

Mostly I never thought of myself on either side of this scenario. I take this from a general perspective as a common understanding between all people who simply don't want acknowledge because it would mean that they would be giving in to their place in this alignment. I don't think that anyone every really knows what side they're on. It's like a war. Both sides think that they are right and either could give you, what they believe would be, a fantastic justification for their actions against the other half if you would give them a few seconds of your time. We all start in the middle ground, just waiting for our fate to be decided for us. And as unfair as it is, we have never really had a choice in the matter.

There was a time when I thought that I might be one of the bad people. When I thought that maybe the way I was raised and my struggle for happiness would push me closer to the left until I was absorbed in a spiral of static. But after I found my music I really thought that it had changed things, made me a happy person and found a way to pull me back to where my mother would have wanted me to be until I forgot her face completely. Then I was sitting in the middle again. You don't have to be strictly good or bad. You could be both at the same time and maybe more inclined toward another. Or you could be either at different times but still be ultimately good. Right? That's the way I wanted to think about it. But as the red and blue lights made their way toward me I had to think that I must have done _something_ to deserve this.

_I turn the music up,  
Got my records on.  
I shut the world outside until the lights come on!_

I almost find it funny how you never expect it to happen.

Not to you anyway.

One minute we were driving down fairly empty road; my father was in the front seat yelling into his phone at whoever was trying to book our next appearance because to him, yelling was the only way he knew how to get people to do what he needed of them. I was lying down in the small back seat of the black Acura, legs folded in to my chest with the middle seat belt wrapped around my waist in the most uncomfortable way imaginable, but I didn't care. I had been staring at my left hand that had been shaking since I got off the stage that night, baffling me into the anxious state that can only really be cured by the fetal position. It's not as if it never happened, the hand shaking thing that is. Every couple of weeks after I've played a dozen or so different pieces to their fullest my hand would go into shaking spasms that put my arm in a trimmer. The first time I shook so hard that my father had no choice but to take me to the doctor, but he swore that there was nothing terribly wrong with it. I was prone to over exerting my muscles and as a result the muscles flexed and shook as they tried to repair themselves. The only way to fix that was to rest, and rest was just one thing that I could not do. To rest I had to stop everything, and if I didn't play then I would feel empty. And being empty is almost worse than being sad.

I had just lay there staring as I listened to my father make negotiations about ridiculous sums of money that we didn't really need as Demyx, our driver glanced at me through the rear-view mirror. Demyx had been with us for a few years, having been hired by me after it became clear that my father was never going to be sober enough to be trusted behind the wheel of a vehicle. I myself had been perfectly capable to drive, but it was times like this one, where my hands started shaking and the yelling grew louder and more constant, that I was immobilized by my anxiety problems.

Anxiety. My therapist liked to tell me that anxiety was at the core of most of my problems. "You over thinks things Sora," she kept telling me, as if she hadn't a thousand times before. Sometimes her patience was just astounding. But then again she was paid to listen, "Sometimes thinking too much can be just as painful as thinking too little."

"As usual Dr. Heart you give nothing away." I sighed as our last session wrapped it's self up with its usual unresolved mess, "I have to say, I would have thought you'd get tired of never really saying what you mean, but your commitment is quite admirable." I told her with my newspaper headline smile that always got me a bag full of fan-mail I couldn't bring myself to answer.

"Must you always mask aggravation with sarcasm Mr. Valentine?" She quirked her brow at me as I walked to the door, "It's alright to care every once in a while."

"You sure seem to know a lot about masks," I turned the smile smile gone left with only a fave of unwanted vulnerability, my most genuine look as I let the venom of my words sink into her, "I'm not the one hiding Doctor."

It's not that I didn't like Dr. Heart, I actually found her company to normally be quite stimulating. But along with my anxiety came sleep deprivation and with the lack of proper rest my mind tended to drift into the dark thoughts that I usually kept to myself. It's hard to keep things from someone who is paid to pry. Hard to hide from who I wished I wasn't but was all too aware that I was. Those were the moments that I allowed myself to be on the left of the dividing line. When I acknowledged that I was doing something unkind but couldn't bring myself to stop it and unleash the negative effects. Like the look that the good Doctor gave me when I told her about being empty… That was the look that Demyx had been giving me in the rear view.

For that awful moment I'd made eye contact with him, his eyes way too icy a blue to seem entirely real, had startled me more that the lack of control I had on my hand. Demyx had this way of knowing things before you ever got the chance to tell him what was on your mind. It was really quite infuriating. That look made me happy that we hadn't been driving on our own. He liked to ask me questions when my father wasn't around to hear what we were saying.

"Do you ever get tired of it?" He'd asked me one night when we were coming home from a private lesson, a word I use loosely, with some old man that my father thought was necessary to "refine" my skills when all he really did was say a lot of big words to try and confuse me. Not that it worked, "You know being, like, sold by your dad and stuff?"

The thought was amusing to me but it was still too raw a subject for me to want to go into it willingly,"I wasn't aware you were an aspiring therapist," I smirked at him hoping to find that he was in his usual mood of good humor that had him so easily distracted.

"Kid," he laughed a nice smooth and easy sound that came so easily from the back of his throat, proving me right, "You don't pay me enough to listen to your crazy ass thoughts."

"I pay you to drive!" I grinned elbowing him playfully, "Keep your eyes on the road will you?"

"Got it boss man!" he saluted with a face that seemed way too serious for him, but he winked as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

The next time he'd brought up my "Daddy issues" as he so kindly wanted to call it, was after we'd managed to get him to bed after he passed out in the back seat of a limo, uncorked bottle still clasped in his beautiful and magic fingers. "It's always the talented ones," he sighed taking off his hard-billed hat, running his hand through his dirty blond hair as he sat at the bar of too clean living area. It was always too clean because that was the way I liked things. Orderly was the only way I knew how to do it. If you had no structure then you had no technique, no technique meant that you were not perfect. And perfection was everything. Demyx just looked around at the room with an easy shrug completely accepting in a way that never failed to bother me. But of course, he didn't see that. He just looked at me and laughed at my bemused expression, "Don't act so surprised! You can't tell me you pull all that crazy ass bull shit you can do out of your ass."

"As usual you have such a way with words," I smirked at him shaking my head, hating that he was so right about it. My father was a tortured person, he had been for the majority of my life; but it was his anguish gave him the drive to perfect his talent. My pain was what drove me as well, it made me better, pushed me away from the emptiness with the only way I knew how to fill it. I was what my father made me… And that must have shown on my face because before I knew it Demyx was beside me.

"Hey…" He placed his hand on my shoulder giving it a small squeeze as I turned to face him, "Stop with the sad face will you?" he gave me a small shy smile bending slightly so he could look me in the eye. "Don't you know how beautiful you are when you smile?"

That's when he kissed me.

Demyx and I kissed rather a lot, not that it meant anything. It was nothing but a release, something to help me fill the part of my chest that my music was still unable to touch no matter how moving or painful a piece. He understood that as well as I did; that music was the only love in my life and we had nothing but a physical relationship to keep us both from falling onto the wrong side of the line. At least that's what _I _thought we had. I'd shielded myself from my father's lack and abuse of affection for so long that I didn't realize that I had acquired it until it just kind of exploded into the atmosphere making everything between us feel…wrong and sticky. As if it could never be washed off.

"Will you fucking quit already?" He shouted, drawing my eyes away from the bow that was shaking in my hand, resting on my strings as I tried again and again to get this song to fall out of my finger tips. "Do you really think that this is going to make you any better? This… this neurotic illusion you have in your head! You thinks this is going to help you? Sora, it's making you insane!"

Insane. I was used to this word. It was one that fallowed my father around as we sprinted across the world, digging farther into my skin with each utter."I am not insane," I told him softly closing my eyes as I once again tried to force myself to push through the trimmer, but his steady strength yanked the cello out from my chorded hand.

"Are you positive about that? I mean absolutely sure? Cause you're acting just as crazy as your old man." He spat as the one phrase I had been playing over starting to slip from my mind, leaving only his anger that my fragile brain couldn't bear to think about.

"Please give me back my cello." I told him softly, not meeting the gaze that he was glaring into me. I could feel it burning into me, begging silently for my acknowledgement.

"No," he seethed, "Not until you until you look at me."

"Demyx, you're being unreasonable-"

"Like fuck I am!"

"Demyx-"

"Look at me." He said softly, but his voice was a fire in itself, pleading with me to acknowledge what I couldn't give him freely without giving up a part of myself why couldn't he understand that? Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone and leave me to decompose in the ground like the rest of them? "For god sake Sora, feel something for one in your li-"

"All I do is feel!" I shouted, staring at the ground in between us, "I feel everything; hurt, joy, compassion, all of it! It's all here in my hands and if you don't let me get it out it will kill me!"

"You're already dying!" He yelled back at me, shoving my cello back into its case on the ground, kneeling next to me, catching my gaze for only a moment, but that was long enough to shake me. He took advantage of my weakness, "Can't you feel it?" he asked softer getting that I was at a vulnerable state that I wasn't sure I wanted to share with him, "The more you let this insanity drive you the more you start to disappear…"

"Why do you care?" I demanded haughtily, eyes blazing as I forced them upon his excited, miserable face, "It isn't your problem!"

"Like hell it isn't!" he growled, all of the softness gone at my snippy remark.

"Oh and why is that exactly? Please enlighten me-"

"Because I love you, you fucking asshole!" He screamed, taking all of my anger, all of my will, all of my everything and shoving it back down my throat where it tied itself in a knot that I couldn't quite swallow as my eyes found the floor again. There was nothing after that. Nothing but silence until he left me with a sentence that haunted me ever since, "Please…just look at me."

But I couldn't.

The moment our eyes aligned in the mirror when everything was still going normally was the first time I had looked directly at him in two months. All of his hurt, all of his intensity had seemed to ebb away, leaving only an angry frustration demanding some kind of answer from me that I couldn't give him. I couldn't tell him that my feelings had changed because I was to broken to know how to feel about anything other than my art. I always would be, bonded to my father in this twisted way, lost to all people who couldn't understand. The look that Demyx had given me in the mirror was just another way he proved me right. He didn't understand the pain I was going through because he was clouded by his own hurt feelings at my rejection. But I couldn't give him anything more than what we had; I couldn't offer him anything else. I think that maybe he had finally figured that out because when we pulled up to that light, everything that needed to happen just seemed to fall into place.

There hadn't been anyone behind us when we stopped at the red light, just a small amount of traffic running perpendicular of us, completely unaware of our existence.

At least they were.

For a moment.

Most everything happens in these small and seeming meaningless amounts of time and that, it would seem is why we never expect it. What thing of consequence could ever happen in only a moment? But a moment was all it took. A moment was the amount of time that had been allotted for a very tired man who had just worked a sixteen hour shift at some unknown gas station to fall asleep at the wheel of his black Ford while coming off the high way. A moment was all that it took for his vehicle to go careening into the back of our car. A moment was how long it took for us to jolt forward into that light traffic, and in that moment everything…every confusing thought or angry sigh was just as lost as the look I'd given Demyx in the mirror.

There was no slow motion, not like in the movies. No, this happened entirely too fast. The first knock came from the right, the awful crunch of metal ringing out into the air as it fell in much too easily on its self. I could hear shouting in the front of the car and the vague noise of my father spouting out a long string of profanities right before the shrieking of tires trying to stop sounded from the left abade lightly smaller but equally terrifying crunch over took him. One after another cars careened into us, breaking the car slowly until all that was left were the people inside. I could hear them screaming, but I couldn't look. I could never look. If I allowed myself to look up them I would have to accept the things that I saw. I curled up on myself, holding my head in my hands, left shaking harder than ever as I made myself as small as humanly possible and the commotion became less and less until the only things I could hear was the gargled sound of struggling breath and my own hyperventilation that almost covered the small moan of my name.

"So…ra?"

My eyes reacted before my mind could catch up.

I uncurled slightly as I looked up at him. Those icy blue orbs that always seemed so strong now losing all light as Demyx reached out to me, restricted by some unknown force. My throat was closing up as I forced myself to sit up and reach out to him, try and find where the source of all the blood that was freely pouring out of him was so I could stop it. There was just so much…weather all of it belonged to just him it was a mixture of my father's was a question that I couldn't allow myself to ask. I tried to comfort him, to tell him that I was there and that he was going to be okay as I climbed up to him and stroked his face that I had known so well… but Demyx wasn't an idiot. I watched as his eyes came to a close and he left me for the last time. "Demyx…" I whispered, barely about to make my lips move as my vision blurred, but he said nothing. "Demyx!"

Nothing.

I took several rapid breathes trying to calm myself as I stared at him. This man that I had been so willingly intimate with just gone as if he had never been important enough to exist. That was the thought that frightened me. The thought that maybe he was gone because he just wasn't important enough to live… Not like me… Not like my fath-My Father…

He hadn't made a noise since the second car hit… but the moment I moved to check his heat beat, desperately trying to get the trimmer that had spread to my entire body to stop; The moment that I allowed myself to let out the staggered sob of my father's name. The moment that I lay my left hand upon him was the moment that the last car hit. A construction worker texting his wife that he would be home soon just didn't see it coming and collided with the front of our car. He had been so distracted about the fact the his son was coming home from college that he had forgotten, for the moment, that when he was putting his equipment up, he had left a hammer hanging on one of the rungs of his ladder. The very hammer that, in the moment of impact looped around the rung before flying off, shattering what was left of our wind shield and impaliled my left hand with the back end so deep that it went straight threw my palm and stuck me to the lifeless chest of my father.

At least the construction worker got to go home to his family a few days later having little more than a slight concussion. Not like the exhausted man who had lost his life for trying to make it home before he went to work the next day; or the mother that crashed into our side who sliced open her head and ended my drivers life when the metal twisted by her car stabbed into his liver. It's nice that he got to be the one to be okay, that he got to go home and return to normal…

Nothing has ever been normal for me since. Nothing will ever be normal again. It is the price I pay as an artist to suffer for what I find beautiful, the price I pay for sitting too close to the line that divided right from wrong. This was the line that took away the one thing that kept me sane.

And this was the moment that changed my life.

_Maybe the streets alight,_  
_Maybe the trees are gone_-

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Sorry…" I muttered not bothering to glance at the woman who decided to sit next me as the preacher went on and on about what a wonderful man my father had been in a way that made me exceedingly irritateds. This man had never met my father. Never seen him, not in real life anyway. The only way that any of the people in this grand hall that was way too crowded, had ever known my father was by what they saw on the TV. It wasn't like I had been making a lot of noise either. Just the small drum of my fingers against the cast imprisoning my left hand, stuck through with such an odd assortment pins that it made me feel like a pin pillow. And considering how uncomfortable I was alreadywas, that was some feat.

It had been four days and two surgeries since the accident. Four days of coming in and out of consciousness to new faces of crying people telling me just how sorry they were for my loss. Four days of flowers that just reminded me how pitied I was; being wheeled into my glass room at the hospital that they put me in to make sure they could see me at all times in case I tried to off myself. Four days and two surgeries trying not to think about what was happening at this very moment as I stared at the closed casket having seen what was inside at the scene of it all. A once beautiful man stripped of half his face, long black hair cut short trying to make him presentable and a long line of stitches over his heart where they had to pry the hammer, my hand attached out of him… That had been the worst part. Trying desperately to pry myself off of his dead body, begging him to be alright, to say something even though I knew he was gone. Worst than the crushing pain of my shattered hand and the loss of Demyx… but that wasnt what really hurt. What hurt was the part of my fratured skull that still wanted to believe in all the childish things that made bad things go away. The part of me that wanted to believe in mirricals stripped and lain bare before thecup seeing eyes of God. Hoping things will get better is the fastest way to embrace your utter defeat. Hope is the only things that can truly crush you.

I found it harder and harder to breath as I sat next to this stranger woman and listened to the crap the leaked its way out of these people's mouths. About how much my father meant to them, about all of the things he had accomplished, including the raising of his adopted son.

Adopted. Seventeen years and no one had said anything to me about it.

"Did you know?" I glared accusingly at Dr. Heart the moment I woke up, battered and horse to find her looking at me with a strange mix of emotions, so plentiful that I would never be able to list them all. I didn't bother telling her what it was that she knew about because, if she did, then I wouldn't have to. She would get it. And she did.

She looked at me, sobering herself from all the grief that was coming out of her eyes and nodded. "Yes Sora…I knew."

We didn't say anything else.

That had been the hardest day, that first one. The questions that flooded me when I woke up about what happened, who had died first, if I was in any sort of pain- Well of course I was! It never seemed to end. Just Doctors flooding the room, coming and going with paper work, making phone calls, and some of them just marveling at the closest thing they'd seen of a celebrity. "Don't worry Mr. Valentine, we've been in touch with your emergency contact and they should be here within a few days.", "Just try and rest Mr. Valentine, how can you heal if you won't try to get better?", "The surgery went well Mr. Valentine but there were some… well, complications.", "Is there anything I can get you Mr. Valentine?", "Hungry Mr. Valentine?" , "Oh, Mr. Valentine-", "Mr. Valentine!", "MR. VALENTINE!-"

"Mr. Valentine?"

I looked up to see the preacher standing in front of me, his hand on my shoulder with a soft look in his kind eyes. The entire church was staring at the two of us, waiting or marveling at the fucked-up-ness of this all. As I looked at the man with his hand on my shoulder, I felt like I might have misjudged him. It wasn't his fault that he was giving the eulogy of a man he didn't know. Hell- he probably knew him better than I did. And that would always be my biggest regret. I could never ask him why. Why had he never told me? Why didn't he say something? I wouldn't have loved him any less, I wouldn't have hated or resented him, but now… Now I could never ask what other secrets that he had kept from me. "Did you want to say a few words?" he asked me, squeezing my shoulder slightly.

It was almost an out of body experience as I watched myself stand up and heard the muttering of everyone around me, "Oh god, that must be his son,", "Poor thing," , "Looks like he hasn't slept in days," , "Did you hear about his hand?" , "Is that poor child here alone?" , "Heard they couldn't get a hold of the mother." , "I just want to take him home and feed him, look how skinny he is!" , "Said he may never play again," , "Really all of the nerve endings in his hand?" , "Wonder what'll happen to all that money?" , "Who needs to play, he's set for life-" I tried to shut them out.

Everything weighed on me like a ton of bricks as I walked slowly up to the podium where the mic was waiting for me, every voice was stifling but I managed to get there. My left hand was twitching in my cast again causing pain from the needles to shoot up my arm. Sweat rolled down my face and I had no idea why. It was my job to perform for millions of people. I had done several shows and did them with a smile, but I guess then my father's dead body hadn't been behind me. That, and I had always had my cello to synchronize with my pounding heart.

_I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song.  
_

They were all staring at me, no set of eyes letting me rest but, somehow, I didn't really notice. I was looking at the man in the box, marveling yet again at the skill they used to recraft his face. The man in the black mahogany box still looked like my father. But I knew if I wgets have dared to get close enough the warmth would be gone, the smell would be gone… everything that ever him my father would have been replaced by the artificial wax of his new skin.

And that was the thought that gave me courage enough to speak.

"Vincent Valentine lied to me for seventeen years." I spoke into the microphone in front of me, not really giving much of a shit about the gasps of surprised strangers as I said my peace, "He told me that he was my father, and for all intensive purposes I suppose he was. But even now… I'm not sure what to think about it." This wasn't what I had wanted to say really. I had practiced a speech, a really good one in the mirror as I got dressed to be here, ignoring the nasty bruise and rash that the seatbelt had left on my gut and collar bone. But when I stood up everything changed. I could look past all of the harsh words and murmurs, but when I looked into that black casket I felt… bitter. "To the extent that most of you would probably measure happiness, I have had a wonderful life, better than most children my age. But that is one place that Mr. Valentine failed me. Money does not equal happiness. Neither dose obsessive compulsiveness or a highly paid for professional opinion." I locked eyes with Dr. Heart for a moment before she looked away. "Vincent Valentine was a brilliant artist. A handsome and a very successful man and there is no doubt in my mind that my father will be missed… but… He was far from perfect- something that it has never been acceptable for me to be. And I will always regret not asking him what else he has kept from me. That's all."

The silence was enough to get me to walk straight past my original seat and down the aisle to the door, pushing in the much needed sun light as I stepped out into my new life, ignoring the shout behind me.

_And the kids they dance! All the kids all night-  
Until Monday morning fills another life…_

The breeze hit me hard in the face like a slap as I fell against the stone doorway, looking out at the paparazzi that had crowded around since the service had started. "Mr. Valentine! Mr. Valentine!" they all shouted as they cornered me against the stone, drowning me in flashing lights. I blinked against them, trying to adapt to the black dots in my vision as I squinted into the crowd, but as soon as one dizzy spell ended the next started and soon in was hard to breathe.

"Please," I gasped taking a hessitant step toward to outline of the small circle in a panic, " let me through!" I said more shakily than I had intended. That was really all that they needed. In all of my years in the spotlight I have learned only one thing when it comes to panicked writers; once you stutter, they pounce. It only took a few seconds for them to start shouting, and as soon as the lights flared up again I just sank down against the wall and curled up, praying that they would just go away and let me be miserable without reminding me with a new headline in the morning.

This is what my life was. This is how my life would always be, one reminder after another of everything I had lost in such a short time that it would never be fair, "Mr. Valentine how do you feel about inheriting your father's fortune?" "Mr. Valentine! What will you do now that you can no longer play the cello?", "Mr. Valentine! Why did you leave the funeral? Isn't it still going on?", "What's happening?", "Why aren't you inside?", "-your hand?", "-All that money!", "Mr. Valentine!", "Mr. Valentine!"

"You leave him the hell alone!"

They hadn't been taking pictures very long when I heard that voice, so painfully familiar, and a few people come out of the church, shouting and pushin. Isqueezed my eyes closed trying to dissapear but then someone was picking me up and all of the questions stopped. "Is this what you wanted?" the voice demanded, his arms tightening as he cradled me like a small child. It was the voice that startled me. The familiar caring voice that had me open my eyes and look at my savior.

Mr. Strife had me cradled into him, his grey-blue eyes livid, looking exhausted probably from traveling. "You want to see a boy cry over his father? Well there you have it!" he shouted turning around and toting me back into the church in a fury, ignoring all of the people in the pews and walking up to the pastor, "You need to heighten security outside," he told him softly, then he took me back the way we came and out of the room, down the hall to a much smaller one that was easier to handle.

For a few moments, I let my eyes close again, clutching onto the man who had been a missing figure in my life for almost nine years. I held onto him and the part of my life where I remember what happiness was; that it was a possibility… but that was a long time ago, when I still have both hands to pour my heart into.

"Sora?" another familiar voice probed at me from my hiding place in the soft blue fabric, causing me to slowly turn my head and look into the concerned, deep eyes of Dr. Heart. "Sora honey, are you alright?" she asked like she was approching a wild animal, eyes both excited and weary. I don't know what it was, maybe the look on her face, or the way she touched my shoulder but as soon as she spoke, I wanted to be on the ground. I didn't feel protected anymore, I felt stifled and embarrassed and just awful.

"I'm fine." I grunted, squirming until Mr. Strife, grudgingly let me back on my feet, "Just peachy actually, in fact I think I could dance all night."

"Sora…"

"I'm fine," I said again gruffly, looking between the two of them so see them sharing a look that really irked me. Conspiring no doubt, trying to get in the mind of the crazy bastard who just cursed his father's grave. I thought about saying something but instead I just turned away. I was crazy... My father was and so was I. They knew that as well as I did.

My gut hurt as the thought went through me. I was broken. My hand might never work again. And the only person who could have helped me find an escape from all of this madness had been buried two days ago. My feet moved before I told them too, and before I knew it I was running. "Sora?" Mr. Strife called baffled behind me but I could see the door.

I pushed harder willing myself to move faster but before I got there, soft skin gripped the bend of my elbow, "Sora!" Dr. Heart huffed, but I didn't want to hear a thing from her.

"WHAT!" I shouted spinning on my heal so that I was looking back at her looking nothing less than stunned, "What the fuck do you want me to say? Just tell me and I'll say it!" Why was she looking at me like that! I would have done anything to make that stop, to make it end, to make her look at me like she used to; like nothing had changed at all, like I could just erase the whole thing…

"I don't want you to say anything Sora… I just want you to be able to show what you feel…" she muttered in earnest, begging me with her eyes to forgive her. To forget the wrong and try to start over, but I knew better than that.

"Well I feel dandy at the moment Doctor, in fact I think that all of my obsessive compulsive tendencies have given way to a completely new outlook on life." I pulled my arm away from her and took a deep breath, "I don't think I'll be needing to come in any longer." I said coolly as I turned my back to her, not wanting to see how much I hurt her with that. If I were being completely honest with myself, I knew that Dr. Heart cared about me, maybe even loved me. I had that effect on people sometimes… But I just couldn't think about love right then, I couldn't think about anything like that or I would break down.

"B-But Sora!" She gasped and I heard her stumble after me but I took a step away.

"I'll have them send in the last of my payments in the morning." I muttered and then without waiting for more, I walked down the hallway and found the back door, walking out into my new life. A life that didn't need Doctors or nonexistent parental figures. A life that didn't need money, didn't need friends. That didn't need music.

That was my life now.

_Until Monday morning feels another life,  
I turn the music up- I'm on a roll this time!  
And heaven is in sight…_

I sat on the back steps as I listened to people walking out the front, stepping quietly after the coffin before climbing in their cars to follow them out to the funeral home. I just couldn't do that. I couldn't drive after them in one of those death machines to see what else they could steal from me. They already had my father, my friend, and my talent… They couldn't have anything else.

The warm hand on my head pulled me out of my thoughts, but it didn't stir me from my position with my chin rested on my knees as Mr. Strife sat down next to me on the step. We were both very quiet for a long time, just sitting there, drinking in each other's company, and for a minute I allowed myself to examine his face. It was the same as it had been when I was younger, hardly a crease added to his tanned skin. His honey hair sticking up in all different directions, never tameable by anything as his wife would sigh out after a good brushing. He still had the same look, the same style if not slightly better off, but there was a sadness radiating out of him that aged him more than his skin ever could. We shared that kind of hurt. Only what he expressed in love, I only seemed to be able to reveal in anger.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked him softly as we watched the cars begin to drive out of the parking lot with their hazards on after the dark tended hearse. Oddly enough this brought a smile, if only a small one to Mr. Strife's lips.

"Nothing's wrong with you Blue, you're just…hurt." He said simply echoing my thoughts, "Vincent kept a lot of things from you for a long time and now he isn't here to help you heal. It's a lot for any man to handle, yet alone one as young as you are." We sat with that for a while, maybe even longer than that because the next thing I knew all of the cars were gone, followed by the cameras and it was just the two of us and the shadows left to feel miserable.

"I didn't mean it… what I said to Dr. Heart."

"I know Blue."

"I think I should apologize… or maybe-"

"She knows." He put his arm around my shoulders and gave the opposite one a squeeze, "She's a therapist Sora, she can understand the stages of grief. She knows that she needs to give you time and space, but she told me to remind you that you have her home number and the call anytime."

I nodded shivering with sudden cold. God today was exhausting. It was the first day that I had been allowed out of the hospital. They didn't tell me that I had to come back, but they made it obvious that they thought it would be a good idea if I did. They just wanted to make sure I didn't hurt myself; I guess I should be grateful that they cared. But the darker the sky got the more I realized that I didn't want to go back, I didn't want to be watched constantly and get told over and over how sorry people were about what happened. I didn't want to go home either… I didn't want to think about anything that had happened in that house, or what would never happen again. I just wanted to play. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted the cello to draw out all of my pain and let it loose so that the world could hear the beauty that tragedy brings…

But I couldn't.

Not anymore.

_I turn the music up, I got my records on-_

"How's your hand?" he asked after silence surrounded us again, breaking it apart in a way only he could without annoying me.

"It hurts." I told him truthfully with a slight shrug, "The Doctors said that's a good thing, that it would be hard to play an instrument without feeling anything." I related, feeling a little better as I got that out. I just had to keep saying it, keep telling myself that I would get better and then maybe that would happen. Maybe was good. Maybe meant that there was still hope left and that was something I needed to have.

He nodded but seemed far away from in his own thoughts, "Did they say you had to go back to the hospital?" he asked lightly and slightly hopeful.

"No, I'm just supposed to wait for my emergency contact to fly in-"

"Then I guess you're good to come with me," he smiled brightly, almost ridding himself of that horrible sadness. Almost. He sobered a bit when he saw the surprise in my eyes, "I guess you didn't know they called me did you…Well they did, I'm here, and you are more than welcome to come home with me and my family." I said nothing to that, but how could I? He was offering me everything I'd ever wanted on a silver plate, a place in his life with his family in his happy life. He would take care of me, he wouldn't yell, he wouldn't drink, he wouldn't… He wouldn't. But it didn't feel like I thought it would. Not like I wanted it to or needed it too, it just felt wrong, like I was betraying my father, like I was throwing him away, burying him.

"Mr. Strife… I…I don't-"

"I know." He whispered with a regretful sigh, "I know that this is hard for you, and that everything feels like it's wrong and raw right now. I know that you don't want to feel like you are going to forget your father and I know that you don't want me to replace him." He looked me straight in the eye with the most sincere expression imaginable, it was too much and I had to look away, "But I also know that right now, you need to be with good people who love you, and with people who can make you smile. You need a family Sora. I know I can't replace your father, but can you let me try and make the hole a little more bearable?"

_From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song-_

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Come in?"

I pushed the door of the familiar office open with my left elbow, too weary to use my hand seeing as it had been freed from its castmust that morning. Now it was shaking hard in the black glove that covered the hideous pattern of stitches and skin grafts that tried to seal the hole, from nerves or pain I wasn't really sure. It felt like forever since I had been in this room, the neat office with tea green walls and magazines that no one would ever read freely. There was a fluffy Blue couch against the wall facing two worn armchairs and a grand oak desk that sat in front of the grand glass wall window looking out at the rest of Destiny Island. The place would have been comforting if it hadn't been for the big-blue eyed woman looking at me from behind a book, both surprised and relieved to see me in the confines of this room so soon. "Sora?"

"Dr. Heart." It had been nearly a two weeks since the funeral and I still hadn't gotten up the nerve to call and apologize. Mr. Strife told me that it could wait, that she would be willing to talk at anytime and I knew that was true. But bow that we were leaving, not just talking about leaving but actually going, I just couldn't leave things like that. I stepped into the office and closed the door so that we could have a little privacy, "I…Well I wanted to stop by and tell you…just how sorry I am about the way I beha-"

She held up her hand, the kind smile that got me through all of the hard times I had before the worst lighting up her kind face, "Please Sora, let's just forget it ever happened okay?" she raised her brow at me, a habit that I hoped she'd never break. I nodded and we were both quiet for a moment, avoiding each other's gaze. "Would you like to take a seat?" She asked always sensing there's more. I walked slowly over to the couch I had lain across so many times, making witty banter, spilling my guts out, it seemed like that was a world away even when the fabric was warm to the touch.

_Don't want to see another generation drop-  
I'd rather be a comma than a full stop!_

"I'm leaving." I told her when I decided that the quiet was too much to handle, practically screaming in my ears as I waited for the nothing that was coming out of her mouth. She was always telling me to get to the point of the matter, to let it out. Well here I was being as blunt as I could be and she didn't seem the least bit surprised.

"How soon?"

"Our flight is at six."

"I see…"

And then there was more silence. Why did it infuriate me so much? Why was it that every person I spoke to always came up a loss for words? "Well?" I asked her, not caring that I sounded impatient in the slightest, "Is that all?" I demanded coldly, all apologies I had come in for earlier forgotten.

She raised her brow again only it didn't seem so endearing this time as she looked at me with her all knowing couch doctor eyes and started her inquisition. "Is there something more you want me to say?" She asked me softly, and for some reason I felt like she probing me with the knife that was sticking out of my back.

"Gee, I don't know, how about good bye?" I asked her in exasperation, getting up off of the couch, "Or better yet, you could tell me that I have no idea what I'm doing and I need to get a psyche exam, or take time to think about what I'm about to-"

"You want me to talk you out of it then." She said, her voice taking on a tone of understanding and sorrow, stopping my pacing and making me sink to my knees as it hit me.

_Maybe I'm in the black! Maybe I'm on my knees!  
Maybe I'm in the gap between the two trapezes…_

"Please." I whispered, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here." I looked at my gloved hand that was shaking as hard as ever, "I don't know how to deal with this." She was next to me before I even noticed that she left her seat, and then I was in her arms and she was hugging me, something that she had never done before. I stiffened at the physical contact, unable to take it, the love that was pouring out of her because I didn't know that this was a way that it could be expressed. And it still couldn't be. Not like this. Not for me. Not now or ever really. I pushed away from her gently. "I just…" Wow, Why was I getting so chocked up about this? "What am I going to do if I can't come and talk to you ever day?"

And then the doctor really surprised me. She laughed! She laughed long and hard about my words as I sat there looking at her in wonder wondering if my fucked upness had finally broken her, but the she finally started breathing again. "Geez Doc…" I grumbled as she grinned at me, "I'm so very glad we had this conversation…"

"Oh Sora…" She smiled at me, and then she giggled once again as a tear ran down her cheek, "Will you ever learn? What have I been telling you since you were thirteen?"

I blinked, "To let people in."

"Exactly," She said proudly kissing my cheek, "You aren't lost or broken, you're just finally opening up. You're listening! You finally learned all that I needed to give you."

"B-but Dr. Hea-"

"I'm not saying that you aren't still in need of therapy," she told me, regaining most of her doctory composure, "All I'm saying is that you, Mr. Valentine are going to be just fine. You just need to let yourself live, open up to more than you're music, and this," she motioned to my hand, "Might be just what you need to let in this new family and this new kind of love." She smiled at me and for a second I almost smiled back. But there was that word again! I looked at the doctor and she looked at me, and for a moment it was as if I were translucent, made of nothing but cellophane and she could see into all of the secrets I had kept from her. All of the things that were so important to keep to myself now that there was no way to fix them. "Sor-"

"I have to go." I said quickly, getting up before her outstretched hand could reach me, walking to the door. "I don't want to make Cloud wait too long…" I sighed as I put my hand on the knob and opened the door, breaking our bubble of doctor-patient confidentiality. I looked back at her with a light smile that didn't reach my eyes as I spotted her pale face. "Thank you." I told her, "For everything." Then I ducked out the door, but not before I heard her amen.

"I'm not the one hiding Sora…"

_But my heart is beating and my pulses start…  
Cathedrals in my heart._


	3. The Futile

_((The Futile- **Say Anything  
**__Into the woods- **Stephen Sondheim** __[My favorite musical eeeeeeeeeeeever! 3]  
__Gravotte en Rondeau- **Hillary Hahn** ))_

When we are still young enough to believe in silly and largely impossible things, our parents tell us unimaginable, magnificent lies that adults like to call fairytales. These are the acceptable kinds of lies. Nothing like the little white ones that your father tells your mom to keep her happy; those lies are secrets that must be kept so that a family can function. Fairytales are monumental. So powerful that the ones you know can shape the way your life turns out…at least that's what the parents that tell them hope for. They spout off as many of them as they possibly can hoping that eventually, a story about a little girl in red running through the woods with wolf can help you overcome peer pressure. Or a boy and a beanstalk can lead you to look past the need to have premarital sex. What I don't think parents realize is that when Sondheim wrote his take on fairy tales in his award winning musical Into the Woods in 1987, everything seemingly 'innocent' about these stories were completely wiped out. Little red gave into peer pressure. Jack banged the giant's giant wife. Prince charming decided that marriage wasn't his thing and walked out on Cinderella, and the witch was the one who had been right all along. But normal children don't grow up with Sondheim.

No, that torture was left for children like me.

I grew up having this classical garbage spewed down my throat by Sondheim's cock; told that if I drink this magical elixir and hear music for what it really was, then maybe, just maybe I could be something more pthan a shitty music teacher. Be more than my father. Be more than just some pathetic kid who can't decide what the hell he wants to do with his life.

If it hadn't been for my father's classical background, maybe I could have let myself fall into the beautiful lie of childhood. Something away the pain and irresponsible recklessness that comes with being observant. But then again-

-it was Sondheim who's musical manual of sexual frustration that taught me how to masturbate.

"A-ah Shhhhhhi-"

_SHIT!  
__Nothing makes sense-_

I squeezed my eyes shut as I let my hand run down my own length, biting my bottom lip hard against the string of profanities that were dying to escape me. Not from the feel really, but from the frustration. You know the feeling you get when you've been whacking it for nearly half an hour but you just can't get off? Well I do. It had been like this for almost a week now. Get aroused, yank my chain, become acutely aware that my dick is broken, fall asleep glaring at my violin in bitter unhappiness. I guess it wasn't really fair of me to get upset with it, all it did was let me express myself, like my penis should be doing but clearly didn't get the memo. But after getting all hot and sweaty and rolling around with myself for an hour only to falling into a spiraling pit of a sexual nightmare, the only thing that ever seemed to relieve my frustration was music.

It's the perfect drug if you take the time to think about it. Just the right amount of emotion to send you flying into the most incredible high you can ever experience without skipping ahead to something that could potentially ruin your life. Sometimes I wish that I had tried something else. Something awful like heroin or cocaine… at least that way I would be able to get some sort of release out of something other than my fingers. But music is the worst drug. Music is a drug of loneliness.

Back when I was just beginning to play, my father used to tell me that if I wanted a family, if i wanted any real kind if relationship, I would have to kiss music goodbye. At least any professional kind of dream I had for it. "It's a lonely life Roxas." He'd sighed after the argument began for the thousandth time during one of our lessons, "All you do is travel and play the same things and-why are we even talking about this? I thought you hated classical music!"

"Who says I have to like it?" I countered with a quirk of my brow as I packed my violin back into its case, "It's just exposure, something I'm good at and the easiest way to fame and-"

"And what Roxas?" he scoffed, pushing away from one of the academies many baby grand's, "Celibacy? Because you won't have time date, let alone meet a woman."

That irked me, "Look, just because you never had a love life outside of mom doesn't mean that I have to meet someone or become a monk. It's called casual sex father; and though you grew up in a time where looking at a woman out of wedlock could get you thrown in jail doesn't mean that I'll be a virgin for the rest of my life." I huffed tired of the same argument over something that didn't even concern him, "It's my life dad! Just because you didn't make it big doesn't mean that I'm doing this to spite you!"

"Is that what you think this is about?" He asked, eyes flashing as they bared down on me in that fatherly way that is the best and most efficient way to make a child feel like utter shit. "You think I'm mad at you because you were born?" I didn't say anything as that hung in the air between us. Of course he was angry; Cloud Strife was the best pianist on the north side of the Destiny Islands. He could have had anything! Instead he had me…

I guess he got that out of our silence because, before I knew it, he had pulled me into a brief and slightly awkward hug. And then after we both stood there, my read face buried in his chest, he released me for it to never be spoken of again. "Rox…" he sighed long and hard before he was able to meet my eyes, "You are the only thing in your mother's and my life that we ever planned, and even if I could change that, the emptiness of a life without you would have me pining for the day you were here." we'll geez... My father sure knew how to embarrass the shit outta me. I was hard but I finally managed to look up at his face as she frown at me.

"You and I both know you're good Roxas. Damn good! It's just… I don't want you to, well, end up like…" But he didn't say it. He didn't have to; we both knew the name on his mind. The man we'd both witnessed the down fall of even if the memory I had of it was blurred from young age. The man with all of the talent in the world, a life most people would kill for until they found what was underneath. The man who took my best friend away… who I still had nightmares about.

Vincent Valentine.

_So I won't think about it…_

No, I wasn't thinking about this again. I wasn't going to hash out the real of nightmares that I'd had of Sora's father since he'd shown up and tore him out of my life. It wasn't my problem anymore. Sora wasn't my problem anymore! He was off being…well, amazing and brilliant and charming as fucking ever. I was just here. Trying like hell to be something more than mediocre only to feel increasingly more…shitty.

Fuck it!

"Come. On!" I groaned pulling harder in my anger. Not at him really, it wasn't his fault that he was brilliant, but at everyone else. At myself! I stopped a moment to squeeze more lotion onto my palm, not noticing the small creak in the hall as I went back to stroking, trying to get the indecent act over with-

-just as the door opened and my room-mate caught me soft handed under the sheets.

_I'll go with the ignorance_!

"Well well well," Axel grinned as he shut and locked the door firmly behind him, absolutely giddy at the sight of me struggling to pull my pants up without letting the sheets fall down. "Looks like I've walked in on a date. Tell me Rox, was she handy in the sack?" he quirked his brow and got a wad of sadly unused tissue in his face.

"Shut up asshole!" I managed not to stutter as I set myself back to whatever rights I had left, which were only a sad few. I scrambled out of my bed, brushing off the sheets and yanking my pants up the rest of the way. "You weren't supposed to be here for another ten minutes and it's not like I haven't caught you beating your cabbage before…" I flushed not quite ready to look at the emerald eyes that I knew were shining at me in a naughty way. He always found a way to make me feel all hot and bothered with just that fucking look! Mostly i hated that he already knew he was winning... Stupid, condescending, dick fa-

"Whoa, easy there kid," he smirked, pushing my hands away from my pants and pulling me forward by my undone zipper. "You don't have to treat sex so seriously you know." He chuckled, getting way closer to my face then I should be comfortable with, "But really, Rox, what do I keep telling you?" he grinned rubbing his pale nose against mine. "You have a pretty face," he murmured giving me a good long kiss before he whispered into my neck, "You should use it sometime…"

My pants never stayed on long with him around.

_Eat! Sleep, fuck and flee-  
__In four words that's me…_

There were a lot of things that I wanted to say as Axel pushed me back down onto the uncomfortable twin bed that belong on his side of the room. The left side. He declared it on the first day we'd moved in together because he claimed that it was the most sound proof side and a trumpet is far louder than a violin. Mostly I wanted to tell him the he was a pig and not all problems could be fixed with sex. But then of course that would make me a hypocrite seeing at I was about to fuck him in some way or another. Sex had always been Axel's favorite form of coping. That's just something that you happen to learn when you live with a person. He never failed to have a lack of company, refusing to judge when it comes to genitalia. He had wanted to make me some sort of progeny to carry on his good name, but after the first time he kissed me, Axel got a little stingy.

Ever since then, this was the routine. He would get back from whoever he was doing and hope that I didn't mind getting him as someone else's sloppy seconds. I did mind. But I took him anyway. Because despite how disgusting that was, the other thing I wanted to tell him was that, even in face of the fact that he was a slut, and our first kiss was mostly him raping my mouth, I was completely in love with this dumb fuck who's hand was palming me as I got a good grip on his red mane.

Not that I'll ever do anything about it.

_I am full of indifference!_

"What did you do today darling?" My mother asked as she set a plate piled high with pancakes in front of me, giving me a big kiss on the cheek. I smiled at the display in front of me. She did this every time I got home. At the Kingdom Hearts Academy for gifted and wealthy children, we all stayed in dormitories on the campus, not allowed to leave for any reason that wasn't an emergency. They figured the less liberties that they allowed us, the more compliant we would be to their shitty rules, but I think they put a little too much faith in us troubled teens. So, to get a small break from our lack of conformity, we were sent home for a week after every month we spent learning so that we could have time to revel in our new found awareness. Mostly I think that this is so the students that come from higher families can have time to be introduced to the world. But for kids like me, it meant that I got to come home to the sweet smell of bacon as my mom made my favorite meal; breakfast for dinner.

"Nothing really," I lied easily seeing as I had been pretending I was better than I am for years. I used to feel a little bad about it, but after you get a little older I think that parents start to expect it. It's the least I can do to keep it too myself. "I got out of lessons early because Mr. Fair said I've gotten better, then I bummed out with Axel in the dorm and played video games." I shrugged taking a huge bite and the mapley, gooy goodness that was on my plate. "Fuck mom, you're the best cook in the world!" I groaned taking another huge mouthful before I could swallow the first.

She swat me on the back of the head with a dish towel but she was smiling when she came around the other side of the table and sat down. "Watch your language." She scolded me, reaching for the jar of grape jam in the middle of the table, "You're lucky your father wasn't here to hear that." She laughed shaking her head with a bright contagious smile.

I smirked at her, "Then he should be the one in trouble seeing as he taught me that word." We sat like this in a comfortable silence as we ate breakfast dinner in the peace of our small but cozy home. It was times like these were I truly felt happy, grateful to come from a warm and comfy environment with a real family to have witty banter with. But somehow that thought got stuck in my throat. My mom looked over at the empty chair next to her as I looked at her, the longing on her face seeming too intimate to interrupt. But I couldn't stop the question that came out of me.

"When is he…ah, coming back?" I asked, staring down at my plate, pushing my last piece of pancake around in the pool of syrup on my plate. We had avoided talking about it since he left for the airport, leaving me and mom staring at the television in devastated shock at the news that was playing what seemed to be in loop.

I had been in a lesson when my father broke into the room.

"No no, Roxas! You're still too shaky. Strong fingers… like this." Mr. Fair pressed down on my knuckles, making me push harder until the sound was crystal clear and his eyes were shining in delight. "You see?" he grinned at me in pride, "Sometimes it just takes a push." He winked at me.

There are a lot of things that I could tell you about Zack Fair. Most of them are things I have been told myself. I guess the most important thing is that he was once a famous cellist, played with every classical musician that you could possibly think off, but then he developed terribly harsh symptoms of Parkinson's disease, he was told that he had to stop. Of course, being a classical musician, he wasn't one too look at what a doctor told him as a rule. Mr. Fair continued to play despite the fact that they him that he could end up unable to use his hands at all and eventually, the shaking just stopped. Just like that gone. And he became a medical miracle with magic hands that everyone wanted a piece of.

I once asked him why he turned to teaching seeing as he could have done just about anything he wanted. He just smiled and said, "If everyone did only what they wanted to do, then nothing would ever get done." And I smiled too. Mr. Fair was just one of those people that made you smile about everything because he thought life should be a happy place. He managed to take music and write out all the tragedy the surrounded it… at least after he lost his wife to the addiction.

"Well sometimes push is painful," I grunted, shoving my violin back into its case. Rubbing my aching finger tips as I glared playfully at the man, "Not all of us have magical healing hands you know, you don't have to push so hard!"

"Oh stop being such a baby," He laughed, a thick and hardy sound that made you want to laugh to, "I only push you because I know that you can take i-"

The door crashed open, cutting him off mid sentence, and we both turned to look at my father were was panting and disgruntled looking in the doorway. He was noting like his usual smart self, seeming lost and confused as he took advantage of our silence to walk over to Mr. Fair, "Zack…" he panted, taking a hold of his shoulder, "The Valentines…" he breathed helplessly, sharing a look with my mentor that filled me with a small dread. Im not really sure what it was, but something shot between the two of them. A silent acknowledgement of absolute pain. And then as quickly as my father had appeared the raven haired man took a step back and turned, leaving the room as if he had been chased from it.

That had been the only time that I was allowed to leave Kingdom Hearts before break.

_What do the old people teach us, but how to die?  
__And what do those hissy fits teach you except how to cry, pussy, cry? Yeah!_

My father drove like a maniac through the rain as the news man on the radio droned out the gossip that I was dying to hear,"…In other news, Vincent Valentine, world renown violinist was pronounced dead today after a terrible car accident coming home from his adopted son, the cellist Sora Valentine's, televised performance of the Bach suites. Their Driver was also proclaimed dead, his family contacted and grieving, but seventeen-year-old Sora, though unconscious seems to be remaining stable, with a severe injury to his left hand-"

When I was little and I still believed in all of those magical, silly things to make the world seem less terrifying, things like this didn't happen. You heard stories. Tall tales and white lies about frightening circumstances that make you struggle; but fairytales are supposed to help you overcome them. Car crashes didn't happen in fairytales… nobody died and left their child orphaned. Nobody hurt anything that couldn't be fixed. Not until Sondheim. He changed everything when he gave the Baker a child and killed his wife. He made fairytales a real world experience where car accidents take away your idols and send you father flying across the worlds to a problem he couldn't fix.

But I never claimed to like fairytales. That's why I masturbate.

_The futile, the futile, it outweighs the beautiful.  
__Futile, the futile, it outweighs the beautiful!  
__Futile, the futile, the futile so…_

"I haven't heard from him just yet," My mother brushed the question off easily as she got up from the table, taking her half eaten plate with her, appetite gone with mine. She was cool sounding, not normal for her as she let the faucet run hot to get rid of the sticky mess and I knew that she was lying. My mother has never been an angry person, everything about her was loving and warm, but the frigid air that was around her at this moment could only be caused by the frustrating man that is my father. I didn't really get how they had such a great relationship, not that I'm not happy that they did. I mean, it's just that my father was such a close-minded and cool person and my mother… well she was a free spirit.

I got that from her I think, that and her capacity to love idiots. Everything else I got from my father. His blond unruly hair, stormy grey blue eyes, easily frustrated demeanor, strong ropy build and love for music that leaves you thirsty. I was a frustrating asshole. But my mother only ever got angry at my dad.

"Dilly dally silly shally," She murmured into my hair, pulling me out of my mind with a start, "Why don't you go call him?" She suggested sweetly, taking my plate, "I bet he'd like that, and I'm sure Sora would love to hear from you."

"Sure mom." I gave her a half hearted smile as I left the kitchen and walked into the small hallway that lead to my bed room before she could figure out just how fake it was. I wanted to call my dad. I wanted to know that he was okay and everything had gone fairly smooth but I just couldn't stand the thought that I might have to talk to Sora. We hadn't spoken since I was ten… he had been so sad back then, so tragically and frustratingly beautiful that it hurt and I just couldn't imagine what this had done to him. So fragile… it had to have torn him apart.

I sighed, walking into my orange painted bedroom covered in band posters and classical music sheets all over the messy floor. My stomach was churning as I fell onto my bed just waiting for the nightmares to come back and pull me into a restless sleep.

_Taste!  
__I have no taste-  
__I don't like these tiny portions…_

"You call that music?" Axel groaned climbing through my window as I was playing Gravotte en Rondeau for the fifth time through. He always had a knack for coming in at the most inconvenient times and make it seem like it were a mere coincidence. I didn't bother stopping as he plopped down on my messy sheets, still warm from where I had been in them not an hour ago. It was hard to ignore him when he was in my bed… But I pushed myself through the simple torment that was Bach until my brow was sweating and I was satisfied with the pure sound of the final chord that drifted through the room. I looked up from the music at Axel who was looking at me almost exasperated, making me tilt my head.

"What?" I asked closing the music book on my stand.

"You know what." He sighed with a pout and a roll of his eyes.

I sighed and pulled my violin away from my chin so I could give him a hello and good morning kiss. He opened his legs and pulled me into the gap and I did so, letting his hand slide up my shirt to the small of my back, "Better?" I asked him with a quirk of my brow, moving away from him to sit cross legged on the floor, twisting at the pegs on my baby.

"You're getting there," He grinned rolling so that he was laying on his stomach looking down at me, "It would be better if you would stop playing that shit all together and realize your ambition in life if to fuck me to my heart's content."

At least this awful comment managed to make me laugh, "Just because the only kind of music you know how to play is classified as 'loud' doesn't mean that mine is shit." even though it kind of was shit-" Hell I don't love it, but it's better than all the yelling and blaring trumpets you listen to. You've obviously gone def and need to get your ears checked." I told him defiantly.

"It's called Sca music numb nuts and you could learn a lot from it. Maybe God has been looking out for me by cursing me to tragically love what hurts me so that I can save myself from the insanity that comes being in classics." He rolled his eyes at me, pushing his upper body off the bed to rest on his elbows.

"Classics don't make people crazy," I said half heartedly as I tuned up my instrument before I put it back up to my chin and played a satisfying scale. Okay, that wasn't a complete lie. Sure people who got mixed up in the art of classical music didn't always turn out to be the most mentally stable subjects. That didn't mean that classics polluted the mind.

But he just scoffed at that, "Please kid," he flopped onto his back like the restless bastard he was, "The way you hold that thing is like it's your baby. Face it Rox, you guys have a shitty track record. It started at Mozart and went straight down to Vincent Valentine and that crazy fuck son of his. I'm not saying he isn't talented or anything, but with a dad like that? How could he not be fucked up?"

I didn't say anything, choosing to play another scale to ignore that blow. I couldn't really tell him that he was wrong. Mr. Valentine had been a fucked up guy, I knew that from the short moments I had been around him. But, to me, Sora was still the innocent kid that couldn't find any kid of release, back when childhood protected him. But living for so long with that… "Did you hear what they've been saying?" he asked when he could sense that I wasn't going to give anything up.

I blinked and looked up at Axel, his green eyes shining with gossip. He loved a good story. And seeing as my father wasn't giving anything up, I couldn't help but fall into his trap, "Who've been saying?" I asked putting my violin down, leaning over him.

"Everyone," He sighed running a hand through his hair having the decency to at least look a little sad, "Said his hand got straight up crushed man, he'll never be able to play the cello ag-"

"Just shut up and make out with me."

_With your artful abortions of sound!  
__Sealed with a kiss-  
__Slathered in a sauce sarcastic…_

"F-fu!"

"Shut up will you?" Axel growled, shoving his middle two fingers in my mouth to give my tongue something to do as his surrounded my length with a gusto that came with preference. He pushed me down into the matrices and sucked me, sending the mind blowing sensation of being wanted through my tired body… God it felt so good! But also wrong somehow. I didn't know why. That was what I wanted. I wanted Axel to want me, to screw me instead of the whores he associated himself with. I wanted Axel to be with me like this, to take all of the reservations out of my mind and help me shut out all the bad thoughts. And usually he did. Usually all I could think about was how much I loved this twisted boy. So why was it, that even though he was on me, all I could think about was Soar Valentine?

I bit back a moan as his handsome face ran through my head and closed my eyes. Fuck! I wasn't going to do this. It had been a shock to my system when I sat with Mr. Fair in the common room and watched the little boy I had met so long ago walk out onto a world televised stage to play without the cool demeanor that I had known him for. It was as if all the emotion he held in when I knew him poured out of his hands that wiped the air into a moving serenade of life. Not a good life but the hard one, the small things that beat you down over and over until there is nothing to see but…music. "What I wouldn't give to shake that boys hand…" Mr. Fair said in an awed voice that held some sort of emotion that I couldn't understand. I couldn't tell him that I had. I couldn't say that I had held him once as he sobbed into my small frame about how broken he felt despite his talent. The truth was, when I looked at that blue-eyed boy, his hands stronger than they were, his frame still slight but more durable, those great orbs were still the same. Still scared and alone. Still stoic.

And that frightened me.

_So go chock on your irony!_

Axel continued with his relentless stimulation as my right hand fisted in his hair wishing that he would let go of my hips and let me move. I wanted more and I wanted it as fast as it would come. The longer he allowed himself to torture me the more my anxiety spiked and adrenalin pumped through me turning me on the extent that it hurt. "Axel please…" I hissed through my teeth trying to keep my voice down even though I felt like I was being ripped apart but he just smiled around me, pulling up with one good suck before he began kissing up my body under my disheveled clothing. I gasped, "God damit Ax-"

"Shhhh…" he purred against my lips, grabbing my wrists in one hand as he pinned them over my head. "God you're so sexy when you hold back-" and then he was kissing me, really kissing. Like all out tongue war kissing me in a dizzy way that made me want to run my hands down his body but I couldn't move. Damn him… he knew what I wanted and made sure I couldn't get it to be a fucking dick tease.

"I really hate you, you know," I gasped out between kissed, bucking my hips up to meet the hand he had palming me.

"No you don't," he chuckled darkly letting me go to stroke my face, "A pretty face like this doesn't know how to feel something so ugly…" He smirked down at me, a condescending look that lit the fire in my eyes. I took advantage of his hovering position and pushed him until we rolled over, me on top of him, blanket in a twisted mess tying us together at the waist, my hands trapping his like he had just done to me. He quirked his brow but looked amused at the accomplished high I had on my face. "Alright Rox," He sighed giving up, "Now that you have me where you want me, what are you going to do with me?"

I grinned and leaned down, letting my teeth graze his jaw as I made my way up to his ear, "I'm going to fuck the shit out of you."

What happened next is something that I should have seen coming.

In fairytales, the good ones anyway, there is always a moment. The one you never see coming. A moment where all of the original ambitions of the man who started the story change. It always starts with a woman. Maybe a milk maiden who steals the heart of a knight, or a lost princess who was steppe rated from her prince at birth . In my case, the real life one where I'm half naked on top of the lust of my life, to distracted to care that I forgot to lock the door, my maiden in a rumpled, traveling ball gown happened to be my childhood best friend.

"Oh! Uh…Sorry I thought this was the…right..." the door slammed shut almost as quickly as it opened leaving me and Axel both staring after those shocked and dazzling blue eyes in utter astonishment.

_What do the old people teach us, but how to die  
__And what do those hissy fits teach you except how to cry, pussy, cry? Yeah!_

It was Axel that spoke first, "Was…that-?"

"Yes," I said gruffly, shoving the blanket down and pulling up my pants, not letting myself look at him. This couldn't be happening. Sora couldn't just be here! I knew that my dad was going over to set all the affairs in order but I hadn't even had time to get ready. I didn't realize that it would be so fast, too fast- I needed that time! To make myself better…To get this out of my system and not let him walk in on me in the throes of fucking passion! I grabbed my shirt up off the floor and pulled it over my head as I spoke to Axel absent mindedly and distracted. "The Valentines are family friends," I said entirely too fast, "and he didn't really have anywhere else to go so-"

"Well then…" he made a deep carnal, appreciative sound at the back of his throat, "He's a bit of a cutie isn't he?" he muttered and I looked up just in time to catch the grin that stretched across his face as he started walking to the door. " Maybe you should introduce us Rox."

Fuck no! I jumped in front of him, blocking his exit as I threw his shirt in his face with an icy glare, "Sora is off limits." I told him venomously, "No looking, not talking, and no, absolutely no touching. Got it?"

"God what are you, my mother?"

"Axel!"

"Look," he sighed exasperatedly, "I don't get what your problem is but I'm not just gonna go up and rape the poor bastard. I'm just saying he's cute and right now he's fucked up, and in case you haven't noticed Rox, that's exactly my type." He huffed pulling his shirt over his head. Well shit, he sure knew how to get me to feel like utter crap. But I just couldn't handle that... I couldn't think... No!

"Ax..."

"I get it, you're friends or whatever, but obviously not great ones or you would have said something about him to me, so just calm the fuck down and let me do my thing," he grumbled grabbing my arms and pinning me to the wall before I could figure out what was going on, "got it memorized?" He looked me straight in the eye with his, please shut up or I'll hit you gaze and eventually I nodded. What did I care anyway, it wasn't like Sora was my personal property… I wasn't even sure we were still friends.

_The futile, the futile, it outweighs the beautiful._

_Futile, the futile, it outweighs the beautiful!_

_Futile, the futile, the futile so…_

I stared at my bedroom door, not quite sure that my house was still on the other side of it. It felt like I was suddenly in wonderland and the only thing that I actually knew for certain was in the unexplored territory of the looking glass, there was no way to know if even that was for sure. I looked over at Axel who was looking at me in a question and I knew I had to pull myself together. I had to go out and face this head on or I would never find the courage later. I took a deep breath and looked at the fire crotch to my right, "Look, you better go home…" I sighed, feeling a lot like a deflated balloon as I put my hand on the door knob. "I'm sure that an emotional suck fest is waiting for me on the other side and you don't want-"

"You want me to miss out on all the fun just so that you can make sure I don't try and get in the sexy cello man's pants…"

I waited a beat, "Yeah that's pretty much it."

"I can't stay for dinner?" He pouted but he was already retreating to the window having had enough of his own personal tragedies to want to willingly sit through another one.

I smirked at him, "You set a foot in there and I'll spit in your coffee for the next week."

"So this is where I take my leave then," He winked giving me a quick peck, "Save me some of that gorgeous broken boy, kay?" and then he slipped out the way he came.

_I'm eating rat poison for dinner!  
__Pull the chord from the phone, I am dining alone tonight-  
__Rat poison for dinner! Pull the chord from the phone I am dining alone;  
__So good night._

It was oddly quiet when I stepped into the hall. The house seemed peaceful in an almost creepy way, making me want to turn back and lock myself away from the humiliated suffering I was about to push myself into. But I managed to get out the door. I closed it softly after me exhaling hard as I snuck past the guest room to the kitchen door, jumping back a step when I realized my parents were in the middle of a heated conversation. "And what did Dr. Heart say?" My mother asked her voice full of an anxiety that I had never experience with her before. This was so wrong, I shouldn't be listening. But who the fuck was Dr. Heart?

"Well," My father sighed sounding a little less troubled than she was, "She said he seemed relatively unfazed about the whole thing. Odd really. Usually this kind of thing takes time to sink in, to really hit you, but… Sora hasn't shown any sort of outward aggression since the funeral and even there it was well contained. The only anxiety he's seemed to have at all was about moving here and yet he continues to act as though everything is fine. It's like..." he paused seeming to struggle to find the right words, "he's wearing some kind of mask that I just… I don't know how to…" And he sighed again not bothering to finish his sentence.

They were silent for a moment, a long one that ate away at my chest as I waited for them to go on, or at least come out and find me listening. Hell I would welcome a scolding as a good alternative to what I was feeling now. Pity… Pity and longing all rolled up into a tight knot in my throat that I didn't have time to swallow down. I didn't get to sit with it for too long. My mom, being the beautifully fearless woman she was, asked what I most wanted to know.

"And his hand?"

"…What about it?"

"Will he recover?"

"The Doctor said that the skin graft was taking quite well and the hole in the bone should heal up after a while… the nerve damage though is pretty-"

"Cloud," She cut him off again and at that moment I wished that I could see her face, she sounded frustrated and I knew it was because he was avoiding the real question. "Will he be able to play?"

And there was that silence again. Only this time the silence didn't stop, it went on for an eternity until the pain I felt in my heart in throat was too much. I had to walk out and interrupt it before it swallowed me whole. I stepped into the kitchen with a small, forced smile on my face that I hoped looked real just as my parents broke eye contact to look up at me. But it was too late, I had seen the look that was running between them and it ripped me apart. The look said it all, everything that nobody wanted to hear. Sora Valentine, the progeny who stirred the lives of millions and raised new awareness to the music we all said we hated but secretly loved; the boy who had a brighter future that any one of us could ever imagine, the boy who lived and breathed the essence of music itself... Just like Mozart...would never feel that sort of high ever again…

_Love, I will not love-  
__Yet I'll still sing about it...  
__Hope it covers the ocean in slime, the drama and drool;  
__I'm leaving the blood of a fool!_

_(I'm full of it- FULL OF IT!)_


	4. Dream

(( _Dream- **Priscilla Ahn** [ Music video version, not album._ ] ))

Sometimes it feels like everyone.. like all of the people in the whole wide world are staring at me, just waiting with expectant eyes for some kind of miracle to to happen. Like I could blink out some sortof magic. Or just breathe and somehow create the one thing that everyone has been so desperately looking for.

My father used to tell me that this was just something that came with being a celebrity. When you grow up as a public image, you become...untouchable. Something that normal people use to compare themselves to, someone that they can look up to. A vision. A hero... And it really is a beautiful thought. To think that people you've never even met can know you and love you for what they imagine you to be... Everything turns out so much better when you get lost inside the innocents of imagination. Everything is simple when you don't have to look at all of the past wrongs. Everything is a miracle. People imagined my father to be several different kinds of miraculous.

That's the nice thing about not really knowing your idols. You never have to understand just how much they will disappoint you.

As I laid staring at the ceiling of the room that Mr. Strife had directed me too, I wondered what it would have been like to grow up idolizing my father. In my own why, I suppose I had. I had examined him. Taken care of him when he couldn't take care of me. I made sure I understood his every move just so that I wouldn't have to end up as miserable as he was. I knew everything about him. Every inch of what made him who he was. And I'd hated him for it. I also loved him. I'd respected him for the music that turned him into a monster. But did I ever really adore him? Not love him, adore him. There is a difference if you really think about it. All children love their parents. Even if they say that they don't, they're lying. It's something that is wired into you from the moment you hear their overwhelming voice in your small and frightened ears. The first sound of your father laughing is the sound that taught you how to love... though it's hard to say that since I hadn't heard the sound often since.

I listened to the rustling of dishes in the kitchen as I clinched my broken hand over and over. I could hear laughter. Real laughter. Like the kind I still have dreams about when I allow myself to sleep. I could hear the Strife's interacting with each other; Mr. Strife's slight chuckle and his wife's half-hearted scolding that sent Roxas into some kind of joke that had them all at it again. All of them happy and at ease and so full of life! And all I could do was sit in this room and stare at the the ceiling wondering how I was supposed to let myself into the lives of these people that I didn't belong to.

It felt like days had passed since I had entered this house; hours upon days upon years since I found this room and closed myself up inside of it. This room that, I was told very kindly by these wonderful people, could be mine if I wanted it. All I had to do was smile and nod and... try. Try to allow myself to become one of those happy people you always hear so much about. The successful ones that get the girl at the end of the story. The ones with proud parents that like to show them off for more than money; parents they didn't have to hide from in the middle of the night. The ones that understand how to be simple. That didn't shun simplicity for being so much less complicated than complexity. Happiness. It just didn't sound right in my head.

I sat up, feeling restless and somehow tired as I looked at all of the boxes of my things piled up around me. My life packed away in little bits ready to be spread out and start a new, better chapter. My old life waiting to relive itself in a new home... But that was just it. This wasn't home. The more I looked around this room, walls painted bright blue like the ocean, colors thrown in ever direction that had no kind of sense to them, the more I was painfully aware that this was not my home. This was a guest bedroom. A bedroom meant for people who come into the lives of the Strifes but got to stay their for only a short while. This bedroom wasn't meant to be inhabited. Not really. But here I was intruding in their world when I didn't know how to get out of my own.

_I was a little girl alone in my little world,_  
_Who dreamed of a little home for me._

Tentatively I set my feet on the cool wooden floor and pushed myself off of the bed. I padded over to the door and pressed my ear to it, wanting to listen to the happiness that I didn't know how to be a part of. It was mumbled. Everything muted by the thickness of the wood leaving me to struggle through my anxious fit of unawareness without anyway to prepare myself to make contact with them. I was a small tree in a woods of fully grown trunks who ended too far above my head to hear their whispers.

How was I supposed to talk to them? How should I address them? Was I supposed to smile and let myself joke around, maybe express my sense of humor and wit? Did I have a sense of humor? Would I be accepted by them immediately or was their some kind of test that I had to go through first? Did I need to study or was it common sense? Why couldn't it just be simple?! When I was with Mr. Strife things were so easy, but that was before I had became more aware of myself. It's very simple to let yourself be broken with a fatherly figure. Very easy to let them take care of you. But now that I had exposed that vulnerable part of myself I felt raw and bad. Like he could poke my stomach and I would be winded by the simple fact that he knew entirely too much about me. That was something that I just couldn't have. Something that I couldn't deal with. When you are a public figure, anything that you let be known about yourself becomes a weapon used to beat you into insanity. To make you feel alone and scared of everyone you've ever Mr. Strife knew everything. That alone was enough to have me curl up on myself and gasp for air.

I was breathing so heavy and fast that I didn't even hear when he entered my room. I didn't notice him at all until his hand met my shoulder.

"Weird isn't it?" The warm voice asked lightly, freezing me entirely. I didn't know this voice. It wasn't one I had heard before and it most definitely was not a voice that belonged to someone in this house. But somehow that settled something in me. And after a moment I began to take much slower, more fulfilling drafts of air. He didn't belong here, but then again, I didn't belong here either.

A few minutes dragged on and I managed to pull my head up out of my arms and look at the person attached to the rough hand that had yet to leave me. I didn't scream, I didn't even ask what he was doing here or why I had seen him underneath Roxas just a few minutes ago. No, I only looked at him, taking in the brightness of his green eyes in the dark shadows of the room, sun barely making it in through the newly open window. "What do you mean?" I asked him as steadily as I could.

"Them," He grunted with a shrug as he stood up holding his hand out to me. I offered him my right allowing him to pull me to my feet. "Their happiness, it's just... well it isn't fucked up." He smirked at me, "I guess I find that a little... fucked up." he chuckled grinning at his own joke.

I looked away from him back at the door where all their oblivious happiness was still occurring despite the fact that I was shut up in this room with a stranger who may or may not try and kill me. Then I looked back at the man himself. He didn't seem all that frightening. Intimidating yes, but having lived with a man like my father, this was something that I could easily push aside. He had a light air about him, something dark, but also carefree. Definitely not a murderer.

I guess that's a little morbid. To so often think that people want to kill you. Dr. Heart used to tell me that it was useless to be afraid of this kind of thing because then you would never allow yourself meet anybody. I told her that she was wrong. Anyone that you already knew could potentially turn into a killer. Their are so few people in life who actually want to spend a decent amount of time with you that you never know who you can trust. And anyway, there was no point to that argument in the end. I wasn't afraid of death. I was terrified that I would be left alone before it found me.

There was something about this guy that I couldn't help but find trustful and it wasn't his mischievous eyes or heartwarming grin. I think it was that, deep down, I did find it a little messed up that the Strife's could be so happy. Not because it was wrong, but because it was such an alien emotion to me that it didn't really seem... possible.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked him clenching my hand again to test the feeling that had recently started to disappear completely. I met his curious gaze with a determined one. "Nothing all that painful I promise. Just an easy question."

He seemed amused by my train if thought, "Shoot."

"Are you happy?" I breathed.

"Well that depends."

"On what?" I raised a brow at him.

"Will you go on a date with me?" he asked with a sensual quirk of his brow that, despite all of my good sense and reason, had me grinning like an idiot.

"No, I don't think I will." I told him with a slight laugh as I sighed and walked back over to sit down on my new, colorful bed.

An overly obnoxious pout made it's way across his face, "Then I'm pretty fucking miserable." he answered sticking his tongue out at me as he came to join me on the bed. "I'm Axel by the way." He told me with a broad smile, "A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?" he smirked extending his left hand to me.

"I doubt that I will have trouble remembering the four lettered name of someone as forward as yourself." I laughed and gave him my left hand without thinking, "I'm Sora..."I mumbled as I realised her was staring. Holding my hand carefully, like I could break at any moment with eyes that made me look away before he could express how 'sorry' he was for my loss.

But he just let it go and took hold of my chin, bring my gaze back to his. "Anyone ever tell you that your eyes scream 'fuck me' Sora?" he asked with a curl of his lips as his tongue caressed my name. But I just raised my brow at him.

"Anyone ever tell you that yours define 'Trouble?'" I quipped with a straight face making him laugh.

"Fair enough," he sighed jumping off the bed and walking over to the open window where, I suppose, he must have gotten in. "Well Mr. Valentine, I have to say that it has been lovely meeting you, but I have to get the hell out of here before Rox catches me seducing you. He doesn't really want me in your life. Maybe he thinks I'll go crazy if I hang around you Valentines. I guess we'll have to take a raincheck pity fuck, hm?" he lifted his brow at me again.

"Roxas asked you not to speak to me?" I asked him intrigued by the thought. Why would he do that... but the last part of his goodbye distracted me. "And who said that I was pitying you?"

He smiled, "Fine. I'll take a rain check on the totally hot, not-pitying, dirty sex." he shrugged letting his feet dangle out over the yard, "I'll see you around Blue." He winked and then he was gone and I was left alone looking out at the grass and trees.

_I played pretend between the trees,_  
_and fed my house-guests bark and leaves._  
_And laughed in my own pretty bed of green._

I hadn't been staring after him very long when there was a quiet knock on my door and Mrs. Strife popped her head into the room to smile at me. She had a beautiful smile. The kind that just made you feel like you were her favorite person in the world. I blinked at her, forcing an easy smile onto my face, glad to see that it still came as a reflex. That would have been too valuable a skill to loose. It felt a little stiff but she either pretended not to notice or had the grace not to say anything as she took a shy step into the room and looked around.

"Sora," she said sweetly, walking over to me as she glanced at all of the untouched boxes, "have you just been sitting here in the dark this entire time?" She asked with a slight frown that made me wish I'd thought to turn the light on as she walked to the window and pulled open the blinds. "That's better," she muttered turning back to me.

"Sorry," I told her, trying to go for sleepy and dazed, "I think I fell a sleep for just a bit there," I managed a small laugh for her benefit, "I guess the trip took more out of me than I thought." I shrugged, shuffling easily to my feet.

She smiled at me again, "I bet you must be hungry." she raised her brow as if she were daring me to say that I wasn't. Shit. Her husband probably told her that I haven't been eating... I just wan't hungry. Not for food anyway.

I let my eyes drift past her to the hard shell that held the new bane of my existence, the only thing keeping me from the only drug I had to take the pain away. My cello. No longer mine to control.

"_I'm doing this for you're own good_." Mr. Strife sighed as he closed my instrument up and locked the case, slipping the key into his jacket pocket. "_Dr. Heart and I both thought it would be better for your recovery process if you could rest._" He explained without looking at me. Unable to stare at the hurt and longing that poured out of my eyes.

Of course he had been talking to Dr. Heart. I really should have seen that one coming seeing as anyone who knew me closely nowadays, had to have a therapy conformance so they knew what buttons were okay to push. "_It's not that there is anything wrong with you, Sora_." she told me when I called her about it. "_In fact, that's just it! There is nothing wrong with you. You are taking this tragedy entirely too well for you to be properly coping. It's... Alarming. And frankly, with you in this kind if mental state, we have no idea what will push you into a mental breakdown_."

"_Why does their always have to be a breakdown?_" I asked grudgingly as I got yet another glare from the flight attendant who had told me to put up my phone three times already. "_Why can't I be an acceptation_?"

There was a long pause at the other end of the line before she answered, " _You are an exceptional young man Sora... and by all means an exceptional musician. But you've already had your exception to the rules... no one can keep dreaming forever._"

_I had a dream..._  
_That I could fly, form the highest tree!_  
_I had a dream-_

Walking through the Strife's house was like taking a stroll into my childhood. It's was an odd feeling. A feeling that should make me feel warm and comforted by the happiness. But I just couldn't muster up the strength that it took to keep a smile on my face for long. This wasn't home, and it wasn't anywhere near comforting. It was vicious and terrifying and, quite frankly, a little fucked up. Each step I took lead me farther into the trap of what I didn't know. Each step dragged me more into the family that I had been obsessed with for so long. Each step was another step toward the only real friend I had ever had. The friend that, apparently didn't want people to know that we knew each other...

"Well what else am I supposed to ask him about?"

"Why do you even need to ask him anything, Roxas? Just leave the boy alone."

"Do you really think that not talking about it will make it go away? Like that'll heal him?"

"All I know is wh-"

"Alright! Everyone is here," Mrs. Strife cut across their hushed conversation in a voice that was too cheery, practically pushing me into the room where both pairs of story blue eyes found mine with a mix of embarrassment and caution. "Now," she interrupted the silence by guiding me forward and pushing me down into one of the chairs at their small round table, "Let's all sit and have a nice family dinner, shall we?" She shot a look at her husband, then turned back to the stove before anyone could say a word.

It took him a moment but Mr. Strife regained his cool composure, managing to put a contempt, relaxed look on his face as he took the seat to my left. "How is the cramping?" He asked me way too casually, not bothering to look at the hand he was asking about. Dr. Heart had told him that it would be easier to talk about my 'problem' if we never directly said what it was.

"_Just talk around it._" She told us as she folded another one of my sweaters, the pair of them rummaging through ll of the things in my home that I was too afraid to touch, "_You both understand what the problem is, so why bother stating what you both know?_"

Sitting at this too friendly table, looking into the kind eyes of this man who was trying so hard, I decided, though I didn't agree with her, to give the good doctor the benefit of the doubt. How could I get better if I kept fighting them every step of the way? And maybe if I showed progress... if I could handle myself, they would give me back the key to my happiness. But how could I get anything back if they knew how much pain I was still in?

"It's... not so bad today," I lied easily. Or at least it was meant to be easy, but as soon as I said it, a shooting pain struck through my arm, making me gasp out. Damnit... I just couldn't get a break. Mr. Strife gave me a look, one that was odd on his usually soft face and I sighed, "It hurts like hell Mr. Strife."

He grinned at that, "Cloud please, Sora."

"Cloud," I amend with a smile that didn't hurt as bad as it did before. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to let this man back into my life.

"Dinner is served!" Mrs. Strife exclaimed cheerily plopping down a piping hot dish on the table. It was filled with gooey macaroni and cheese that had peas sprinkled on top of it in an oddly delicious looking mix. She walked around to the other side of me, kissing Roxas obnoxiously on the cheek as she passed him to sink into her chair. And for a moment we all just sat there and stared at each other. All of them taking turns peeking at me as if I was about to collapse or maybe start screaming, or possibly cry over some lost memory. But honestly the last thing I had on my mind was a heartfelt family memory. My father and I never ate at the same time, if he ate at all, unless we were at a function. And I couldn't remember if my mother liked to cook or not. Infact I would have been happy to take the first bite if they all would have just stopped looking at me like I was from another planet.

And just as fast as the silence fell, the table erupted in a million different points of conversation at once.

"So how was the flight, Sora?", "Can you pass the salt Honey?", "Shit mom, you are the god of cooking-", "Roxas! Watch you're language.", "Do you like macaroni, Sora? I wasn't quite sure what to make,", "Tifa stop it, he's a boy, we eat anything.", "Just because you eat anything doesn't mean that he will, Cloud!", "No, seriously mom, this is fucking amazing.", "Roxas!", "Sorry...", "I'm sure it will be fine-", "Then why isn't he eating?", "Sora, son are you feeling okay?", "Is it your head? Does you're hand hurt?", "Tifa!", "Cloud look at him, he's gone red! Maybe we should call Dr. Heart and-"

"Did you ever think that maybe he isn't eating because you guys are staring at him like he's some kind of mental patient?" I looked up and found Roxas looking at me with some sort of aggravated pity in his eyes, something that wanted to scream at his parents for being so attentive, but he held it in. He was just kind of good like that. Good at letting out only what he needs to so that his point comes across. Unfortunately, as you get older, that stops being cute and becomes somewhat baffling. Just like the look that he was giving me now. It was a kind look... but this was a look I didn't want. A look that I couldn't handle. And seeing as he had just told his fuck buddy to not talk to me just a few minutes ago, the fact that he was pretending to give much of a shit was a little upsetting.

I looked down at my plate piled with food I didn't remeber putting there. It smelled so wonderful and I could feel the heat on my face, and even though my stomach was protesting, I couldn't bring myself to touch it. I could feel it. Their eyes locking onto me every few seconds, desperate to see me acting somewhat normally, not that they knew much about my normal... It was just a little too much for me.

I stood up, my chair scratching against the wood floor with a squeak and then they were staring full out. "I...Sorry, I just... bathroom!" I breathed before ducked out of the room, rounded the corner and ran out the front door, ignoring the shouts that came after me.

_Long walks in the dark, through woods grown behind the park._  
_I asked God who I'm supposed to be..._

When I stopped running I was aware of only two things. The first one was simple. I was utterly and hopelessly lost. Somehow, I hand found my way out of the humble neighborhood I'd driven into from the airport and fell into a beautiful, green park, towering with trees. There were small fences lining small dirt trails and benches every few turns. An asortment of plane looking birds flew every way you turned your head and only a few people to ruin the serene feeling of being utterly isolated. The place was wonderfully beautiful; but I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it because of the second realization that was pulsing like fire at my side.

"A-ah!" I yelped and crumpled in on myself, my knees hitting the ground hard as burning pain ran up from my fingertips, to my shoulder and down, out of my toes. This was not like the normal pain, this was much more intense. The doctors told me that I would experience tingles. They said that pain could be good, that it could mean that I would be able to feel again. But I don't think that this was what they meant. I felt like I was dying.

I trembled violently gasping out in pain as the few people on the path glanced at me before scurrying away as quickly as possible. I wanted to ask them to help, to tell them that when they see a person on the ground in pain you should have the decency to see if they're alright. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything but squeeze my eyes shut against the tears as they poured down my cheeks and prayed for the pain to finally stop.

_The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie._  
_I said a prayer, and then I fell asleep_.

A cool sweat dripped down my nose when the pain finally eased out of me and I finally unclenched my hand, stretching my fingers against the warn leather of the clove it was trapped in. Once again all of the feeling had gone. Vanished. And I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I tried and failed to stagger to my feet, slipping back to the ground clumsily, dizzy from my spell of pain. I was tired. More than tired, exhausted. So exhausted that I could have and probably would have fallen asleep if it wasn't for the man who came to kneel down in front of me.

"Hey, kid are you alright?" He asked, his voice full of a parental kind of concern that made me focus on him. When my vision became less dazed I took him in. He was a big man, tall even when he was squatted in front of me with a bulky, well built frame. His hair was jet black and unruly, pale skin making his eyes stand out bright and animated. Eyes that seemed so familiar. Eyes I knew...

"You're Zack Fair..." I said, barley audible. Zack Fair. The cellist who lost everything and, by some act of God, managed to get it back. The man who wasn't crazy. Who found a way to not let the music drive him into obsession. The one that gave me hope..."You...you're my idol!"

He smiled kindly at me, but there was something there, something I didn't really know how to feel about, "And you are Sora Valentine," he grinned when he recognized me fully. "I cannot even begin to express how impressed I am with your skill young man." he stood gracefully offering me his hand, which I took easily though standing was a bit more difficult that it had been for him. I wobbled but he helped me steady myself before he let me go, seeming to understand that I needed to be able to do that on my own. I needed to keep that much of my dignity.

The pair of us examined each other for a moment, neither able to get enough of what they saw before them. Maybe this was God's why of telling me not to give up. Maybe this was just some freak accident. I really didn't know... Maybe I was dreaming! But if this was what a dream was like then I didn't ever want to wake up.

_I had a dream..._  
_That I could fly from the highest tree-_  
_I had a dream!_

"Thank you..." I mutter shyly as I accepted the cup of coffee he handed me as he took a seat on the empty part of the bench. I took a small sip and grimaced at the bitter sweetness just as he did. We smiled at each other.

"Not much for coffee huh?" he asked taking an easier sip.

I laughed lightly, "We have a love-hate relationship." I shrugged, grimacing again as the bite of it hit my tongue. And like that, the pair of us sank back into a comfortable silence that I had no idea existed.

It felt like, ever since the accident, any sort of comfort that I used to seek from silence had been taken away. Silence became taboo, and pain replaced music to the point that silence was the only thing I could use to cope. I guess I got lost in this thought for a little while because when I came back to reality, Zack was staring at me with those piercing, bright eyes of his. But for some reason, this didn't upset me at all, it only made me wonder what he was thinking.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" He asked softly, his brow raising in a way that made me smile, just like Dr. Hearts.

"My therapist does that too." I told him, causing him to grin.

"What? Ask questions?"

"No," I laughed, "It doesn't really matter." I said softly thinking about how much I missed her already. I wish she were here... she would know what I needed to talk about before even I did. " I think you would like her." I said absently, taking another sip.

"I'm sure I would."

Then there was more easy silence, broken only by the sipping sounds and chirping of birds flying around us. I let myself settle back agains the hard metal, not really enjoying the bite of it, but accepting it as it dug into me. I could understand why old people liked to do this. Come to the park and watch the birds on benches that made your butt fall into a coma. It was peaceful. Like stepping into a new life where awful things can disappear as quickly as they tend to occur. The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if this is what I would do when I got older. And once I allowed myself to think that, I began to wonder if I would get old at all. If I even wanted to.

_Now I'm old and feeling grey, I don't know what's left to say about the life I'm willing to leave._

"Zack..."

"Yes?"

My heart was racing, "Did you ever think about it?" I asked, going very quiet again, not letting myself look at him, but I could feel him looking at me. Bearing into me with a question.

"Think about what exactly?" he asked just as softly as I had, making me turn my gaze up to his. He didn't know. I thought he would, but his eccentric eyes were daring me to let it out.

"Suicide."

He didn't even have time to open his mouth when we heard someone shouting my name.

_I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell._  
_I'm ready now..._  
_I'm ready now!_

Roxas staggered toward us, his cheeks flushed and chest heaving like he had been running around in circles since I left him, and maybe he had. I felt a pang of guilt run through me as his eyes flashed with relief that quicklu became more and more angry with every step. I wanted to sink in on myself. Fall to the ground and slip into the earth. Anything to get away from that look on his face that had always been so friendly. But I couldn't. All I could do was sit there and take it.

"Mr. Fair?" He asked when he got close enough to realise that I had company, but he didn't seem as star struck as I had been. "What are you-?"

"I,-" the raven haired man sighed standing up, "was just leaving." He looked down at me, his face holding a deep sadness that I didn't know how to take back. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the beauty of that silence. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his wallet, taking a white card out and handed it to me. "That's my number." He told me seriously, "If you think like that... anything like that agian, please... call me." and then he was walking away, ruffling Roxas' hair as he left us behind him, leaving me to face his fury on my own.

_To fly from the highest wing..._

The walk home was a quiest one, filled only by the ocational grunts of irritation and sigh. This wasn't a comfortable silence but for some odd reason I found that I wasn't too offended by it. Maybe it was just because I was with Roxas who, even angry, was just easy to be around. Occationally he would stop and start to say something, but then he would just go red again and walk off, leaving me to run along after him. I tried to keep it off my face, but actually, iy was kind of funny...and...cute. It was very unlike him to be so flustered. Or hell, maybe this was just how he was now. After all, what did I really know on thye subject of Roxas anyway?

When we made it out of the park to the woods that joined it to the neighborhood he finally found his voice. "Are you okay?" He asked in a soft voice that was also tense. An odd combination.

I raised a brow at him which he didn't see because he was walking slightly ahead, "Yes, I think so bu-"

Before I really knew what was happening he grabbed my wrist, swinging me in front of him and slamming me against a tree, his eyes raging. "Then what the hell were you thinking?!" he demanded, spitting anger at me, "You can't just run off in a place you don't know with no kind of protection! Do you have any idea how fuck up you could have gotten and I would have had no way to contact you at all?!"

His anger caught me off guard and I could only stare at him wide-eyed and baffled, "Well...I-I just-"

"You just were't thinking!" he shouted letting me go so that he could pace in front of me, "Well no thinking gets people killed Sora, and frankly, I don't really want you to die, okay?" he huffed, "And learn how to knock will you?" he added hastily, looking at the ground recalling how I walked in on him earlier, making me flush as well.

"I...uh, I'm s-sorry." I stuttered trying to regain my wits. But looking at him, I mean really looking at him, eyes slitted and arms flexed and tense, I just... I couldn't think clearly.

"Well good." he exhaled and looked me in the eye as calmly as he could, grabbing me by the elbow. He pulled me away from the tree and we started walking toward the house again, the atmosphere becoming more breathable, "Now we're going home, and you are going to eat something damnit."

"Yes mother."

"...Shutthefuckup."

_I had a dream..._


	5. Shake It On

_(Mini chapter; Zack's POV.  
Shake It Out- Florence + the Machine))_

People will tell you that when you enter the world of adulthood, all of the sins that you brought into the world as a child will somehow seem less vivid. They tell you this so that they can convince you to do things that you know you shouldn't. After all, what was one more drink? Another drag? One last one night stand before you tied the knot and kissed your life goodbye before it ever really had the chance to start. When we are young nothing that _is_ important ever seems worth remembering. It's all the silly- the vapid things that get caught up in your mind until you finally reach the age where you wished you hadn't let it slip by. All the things you forgot while indulging bad habits eventually fade away and leave you by yourself in a nearly bare, mess of a home with a cat and shaking hands that you will never be able to ride yourself of no matter how hard you try.

It's not really that I had a normal childhood, none of us do. Not the gifted. Not the driven. While other children ran outside and climbed trees, rode mountain bikes and scraped their knees; we learned our scales and we practiced them for hours at a time. Children like us don't know an outside. We come from one of two extremes; the strict household with punishing parents that give you looks of disappointment you can never erase from your mind or the loving home, with parents that suffocated you until you felt guilty enough to let them help shape your life. Being branded as a classical musician is a life time commitment that people enter before they are entirely ready to understand the contract they signed. It's a lifestyle. One that doesn't allow any mistakes. Only, being human, mistakes- even if they don't really feel like mistakes, are inevitably made.

_Regrets collect like old friends,  
Here to relive your darkest moments._

The door slammed loudly, echoing through the quiet of my home as my shaking hands pushed back on the hard wood, desperate to shut out the world on the other side so I could think. Just think. Just sit in the quiet of my own thoughts and allow them to consume me like the bright blue eyes that I still felt on my back. The entry way seemed to be humming with the energy that was radiating out of my toes and fingertips, willing me to run back to the park and see if I could get a look at him just one more time. Part of me felt that, if I were to examine him I could find something- anything- that could shake the pit of excitement and dread that was mixing unkindly in my gut. That if I could just speak with him some more I would realize that I was completely wrong and over reacting. Over thinking just as I did with everything else. But the other part of me knew all too well that I knew those eyes. Those big haunting eyes that I would never be able to get away from.

_I can see no way, I can see no way-  
And all the ghouls come out to play._

Shaken, I put my hand to my lips, numbed by the thought that he was actually here. That my ghosts were finally catching up to me. And before I could figure out just why, a laugh fell out of my mouth and into the silence, warming the cool atmosphere with apprehension of the overwhelming happiness that corrupted me.

I stumbled the straight path to the kitchen and tossed my keys on the counter by the stove as I fell off my wobbly legs onto an equally unstable bar stool. For a long moment I just sat there filled with an enormous, nameless emotion that felt something like awe and bewilderment. My heart was pounding its way up the ladder of my rib cage and into my throat, succeeding in pushing a strangled cry out of my lungs but it didn't hurt. Not like It should have. I was hyper aware. Aware that I was breathing far too hard and far too fast. Aware that for once in my life it wasn't because I was afraid. And aware that my phone was vibrating loudly in my pocket.

_And every demon wants his pound of flesh,_

"Hello?" I managed to croak, unable to pry my eyes open wide enough to see who had interrupted my emotional meditation and not really caring. I needed to snap out of this. But I couldn't make myself concentrate on much of anything when there was nothing going on around me.

The voice that came through was exactly the one that I needed, "Zack?" her apparent concern only poured more warmth into my frozen limbs, "Are you alright?"

Smiling into the receiver, I opened my eyes and stared down at bland and blank counter space with a new appreciation, "I'm perfect." I told her with a shuttering breath of air, "I'm absolutely perfect."

It took her a moment to take that in even though it was fairly simple in context. I couldn't really say that I blamed her; I sounded raving mad. But she knew me better than to simply push the role of lunatic into my lap. "I got your message." She said finally with a light sigh that she was fond of doing when she was confused. "It cut out in a few places, so I'm not really sure what I heard. You…ran into someone?"

"I saw _him_." I told her, unable to contain the sorrow and radiance that were both trying to shove their way out of me at once.

A nervous laugh came through the line, "I'm afraid you aren't being terribly specific," she told me trying to seem amused but there was a twinge of something else more propionate in her tone.

"I saw Sora," I told her, this time I couldn't keep the accusation away with the merical that the enlightenment brought. "I saw my _son_." I barely whispered, my bottom lip quivering as I choked, "Were you ever going to tell me? Was he with Vincent this entire time? Did you _lie_ to him too?!"

_But I like to keep some things to myself. _

"Zack-" she tried to reason with me, but I didn't want to hear anything from her. Anger finally reared its ugly head in my chest and as much as I wanted to keep it down I couldn't just repress the knowledge that I had lost all that that we could have had. I had a son. One who had no idea who I was other than my place in the musical world. He was _my_ stupid mistake. One that I would have gladly taken responsibility for had I been given the chance.

"Why?" I whispered through my teeth. It was the only thing that I could think of that had a significant enough meaning to extract the truth.

There was something of a sob that sounded, and before I could begin to feel bad for causing it I got the reply that I didn't want to hear, "Because you were never there." She told me bitterly, "You told me that you wanted to marry me and promised me all of these wonderful things but you never came through! I waited for you- I gave up my career for you! But if it wasn't a tour it was a recital. Then it was rehearsal after that. And when I found out that I was pregnant …I didn't want to raise a child on my own Zack."

"So you left him with a psychopath?" I growled at her.

"Don't you _dare _talk to me about being a parent!" She hissed at me through tears.

"You never gave me the chance to try," I exclaimed feeling overwhelmed and utterly baffled. "If you told me, if you had said something, I would have given up everything. I would have been home more often. I would have tried to be what you wanted, I really would have Aer-"

"Just don't Zach."

"Aerith-"

"Stay away from my son."

_I like to keep my issues drawn._

And then she was gone.

_It's always darkest before the dawn._


End file.
